Posted on 06/09/2005 2:09:08 PM PDT by nickcarraway
BEIRUT -- Unlike Muslims, who won landslide victories in the first two rounds of Lebanon's general elections, estranged Christian candidates are gearing up for a fierce battle in the next polls on Sunday.
Christians, along with Muslims and Druze, as well as Western powers, forced Syria to end its 29-year military presence in the country in late April. But they are now at odds among themselves after former exile and prominent Maronite Michel Aoun decided to forge an unlikely alliance with pro-Syrian candidates.
Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, a leader of the anti-Syrian movement, recently aired his frustration at "the discord that divides Christian candidates" that will run on Sunday in their bastion in Mount Lebanon.
Sfeir worries about the way Christians are handling the first parliamentary elections in three decades free of Syria's grip, explained a former Christian lawmaker.
"Christians are either boycotting [the polls], trailing behind in districts where they hold a minority or waging merciless battles in their strongholds," the former MP said on condition of anonymity.
Aoun, a retired general forced into exile by the Syrians in 1990 near the end of Lebanon's civil war, pledged on returning home on May 7 to work to overturn sectarian politics as part of reforms for the multi-confessional country.
But he said late last month that he had failed to reach agreements on joint lists for the elections with his main opposition rivals, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Saad Hariri, son of slain former premier Rafiq Hariri, a Sunni.
Instead, he allied himself with Druze MP Talal Arslan and Christian lawmaker Suleiman Frangieh, who were among the country's former pro-Syrian figures.
Aoun, 70, claims that he set the ball rolling for Syria's withdrawal, thanks to friends in the United States and the adoption of the US and French-sponsored UN Security Council Resolution 1559 calling for the troop departure.
He says that he is now on an anti-corruption crusade and openly points the finger at his former anti-Syria allies, among them Hariri and Jumblatt, whom he accuses of getting rich during the era of Syrian domination.
Detractors, such as Jumblatt, brand him a gatecrasher and believe that Aoun clinched a deal with Damascus and Lebanon's pro-Syrian government to sow the seeds of discord in the opposition's ranks.
But Ibrahim Kanaan, who is running on a pro-Aoun ticket in the Metn district of Mount Lebanon against anti-Syrian politicians Pierre Gemayel and Nassib Lahoud, retorts that "the general, who was in exile, is the only one that is not a Syrian symbol".
And Camille Ziadeh, who is personally facing off with Aoun in Kesrwan-Jbeil, said "the only divergence we have is due to competition at the polls and not over political agendas".
A former Lebanese ambassador in Washington and long-time Syrian opponent, Simon Karam, also sought to minimize the extent of the Christian dispute.
"Competition is the engine of democracy but the rules of the game must be fair and the same for everybody," he said, underscoring that the current electoral apportionment was dictated by Syria, five years ago.
"It was devised to divide and weaken Christians," he added.
And for Philippe Awad, a lawyer close to the pro-Aoun camp, "competition is a healthy sign at a time when electoral steamrollers in southern Lebanon and Beirut are a proof of archaism".
The pro-Syrian coalition in southern Lebanon - the Shia militia Hizbullah and its former rival Amal - grabbed all 23 slots there in the June 5 vote. Saad Hariri snatched all 19 seats in Beirut in the first round of the elections on May 29.
The fiercest battle of the third round is expected to take place in the Aley-Baadda district between Aoun's and Jumblatt's candidates.
Nine of the 11 MPs currently representing the district in the 128-seat parliament - two Druze, a Shia and six Christians - have been in Jumblatt's camp since 1992.
Any comments from Howard Dean?
ping!
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