Lebanon has said its word: You don't rule us, Hezbollah ;).

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Sounds great. hope Syria and Iran got the memo...

As a country that's been invaded by Israel (when Syria wasn't tag-teaming them) several times, I don't see the 'pro-Zionist' stance. What surprises me is that Lebanon isn't an isolationist nation. No one's been nice to it.

Hope it all works out. Lebanon needs to become the 'Paris of the Middle East' again.

Yes, it would be a big help to the region.

and with the possible ouster of the iran president, the region might calm down a bit

Unless the new (presumably) reformist President manages to convince the Supreme Leader to transfer vast sums of power to him, I hardly doubt it. In spite of all the rhetoric, both from the President of Iran and from opponents manipulatively using his speeches to further their own less than wise policies, he is has very little power.

To give my own thoughts, what would be good for Iran is a relatively secular reformist with power (how he'll snatch it from the Supreme Leader, I have no idea), not another Shah. A president responsive to popular concerns and persues a somewhat indepedent foreign and fiscal policy. Of course, if he did that without a strong military there's a good chance he'd be covertly taken out.

I can only wish the March 14 Alliance luck in governing the country. Hopefully, sound reforms will be in (I, admittedly an outsider both geographically and culturally, would love to see modification of the "National Pact" convention, particularly the religious test for offices of President and Prime Minister).

That is a grossly unfair comparison. Chavez doesn't even compare. I'd even go so far as to say I appreciate the man. Considering the grotesque control America has over South America, I think any politician that stands against our imperialism is incredibly courageous. Whatever you think about his particular policies, he is putting his life on the line. There have been so many of these populist rebels that have been assassinated for attempting to privatize industry within their country.

I think Evo Morales a more admirable or at least likeable model for Third World indepedence.

And I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you, I was taking an issue with his techstep's comparison of Chavez to Achmedinejad.

see what happens if I don't pay attention. I though 'I'm-a-dinner-jacket' stole the Iranian election fair and square. He declared himself the winner around noon EST. Have to go see.


Back to the craziness...carry on.

What Really Happened in Lebanese Elections?


The opposition led by Hezbollah’s coalition received 55 per cent of the vote (840,000) but only 45 per cent of the seats (57), explains Esam Al-Amin.


Since the Lebanese parliamentary elections on June 7, the mainstream media have declared that the results of the elections clearly show that Hezbollah and its coalition partners have suffered a “crushing defeat.” Some, led by the New York Times and cable news outlets, went even further, suggesting that the Cairo address by President Barack Obama was what made the difference, tilting the elections in favor of the pro-Western governing coalition.

This is pure fantasy, and reveals a complete misunderstanding of the nature of Lebanese politics and an ignorance of the realities on the ground.

Let us first get some facts straight. In the previous parliament, Hezbollah and its coalition partners held 58 seats to the 70 seats of the governing coalition in the 128-seat parliament. The governing coalition led by Saad Hariri, the son of the slain former Sunni prime minister and billionaire Rafik Hariri, consists of mainly parties and groups which are considered friendly to the West and pro-Western Arab governments such as Saudi Arabia. This coalition also includes the traditional Christian Maronite parties supported by the Maronite church, such as the Phalanges and the Lebanese forces. On the other hand, the opposition coalition is led by the mainly Shiite parties, Hezbollah and Amal, in alliance with a main Maronite party, the Free Patriotic Movement led by former General Michel Aoun. In the regional rivalry between the US, Israel, and other “moderate”Arab governments on one hand, and Iran, Syria and pro-resistance movements on the other, this opposition coalition clearly supports the latter.

One of the main contentious issues in the previous parliament was the insistence of the pro-Western coalition in demanding the disarming of the resistance movement Hezbollah, ever since Israel failed to dismantle the group’s infrastructure in the 2006 summer war. So the pro-Western groups have been trying to achieve politically what Israel failed to do militarily. The pressure applied by the US during the Bush administration to achieve this very goal had been relentless, triggering a confrontation that lasted over a year and culminated in the recent elections.

Electoral politics in Lebanon is at odds with democratic principles because they are based on sectarian politics. Every major religious group is allotted a certain number of seats in Parliament, based not on population but on a previous agreement reached in 1989 to end 15 years of civil war. For instance, in the current election, the Shiites and the Sunnis had about 873,000 and 842,000 registered voters, respectively, but each group was given 27 seats. On the other hand the Maronite Christians and the Druze had 697,000 and 186,000 registered voters, yet were allotted 34 and 8 seats respectively, far greater than their numbers would entitle them. In addition, more than 120,000 Lebanese expatriates were paid, mainly by the Hariri clan, to fly back to Lebanon and vote. It’s estimated that more than three-quarters of them voted for the governing coalition.

With this background, how did the Lebanese actually vote?

With 52 per cent of about 3 million registered voters actually voting, the opposition led by Hezbollah’s coalition received 55 per cent of the vote (840,000) but only 45 per cent of the seats (57). Hezbollah itself fielded only 11 candidates in deference to its coalition partners, the same number it had in the previous parliament. All of them won their seats overwhelmingly. On the other hand, the governing coalition received 45 per cent of the vote (692,000) and 55per cent of the seats. In essence, the governing coalition won 68 seats, while independents won 3 seats, but later joined the governing coalition for a total of 71 seats.

In other words, the make-up of the current parliament changed only by one seat from the previous one, and that only happened after the independents were enticed to join the governing coalition. Moreover, the real surprise was that Gen. Aoun’s party, the coalition partner of Hezbollah, received, according to the results announced by the Lebanese interior ministry, 52 per cent of the Christian vote, though picking up fewer seats than his Christian rivals. Only in a fantasy world would such numbers be declared “a clear repudiation of Hezbollah’s coalition program,” as the clearly biased mainstream media, particularly the NYT’s Thomas Friedman ,would have you believe.

So the real story of the elections is that the will of the Lebanese people did not carry the day and the principle of majority rule was not respected. The Hezbollah-led coalition had indeed won more votes than the pro-Western coalition by a hefty 10 per cent. When President Obama received 53 per cent of the popular vote to John McCain’s 47 per cent last November, it was declared by the media and political pundits as a crushing defeat for the Republicans and a mandate for real change.

Lebanese politics is unpredictable. Today’s ally could be tomorrow’s nemesis. For instance, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt was for many years Syria’s ally in Lebanon but turned against them a few years ago because of the political shift in the country. However, he recently started sending friendly overtures to the opposition. Though unlikely in the current political environment, but with the control of 8 seats, if he were to switch sides, then the make-up of parliament would become 65-63 in favor of the opposition.

The real question now is whether the new government, having a majority in parliament, will press for disarming Hezbollah in order to satisfy their patrons. If such a policy were to be carried out, it would immediately create a crisis and the majority of the Lebanese as shown on election day will be in the streets protesting and demanding that the real will they exhibited on election day be respected.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/engli ... /?id=32707

Err maybe it has something to do with the mayhem they caused recently...

Hizbullah and its allies won 55% of the vote!
Why, even Michel Aoun's Maronite faction won more votes than the group allied with March 14th (Geagea and Gemayal)...
Hizbullah likes reminding people of the fact that they got 55% and March 14th got only about 45%.

Give me a break with all this mathematical back flips. When someone enters a game and accepts the conditions of game play, especially after a player has, himself, presented the game rules, he has to submit to the results and conclusion of the game

This election law was "suggested" and actually FORCED by Hezbollah in the Doha Agreement when Beirut and other regions were under the mercy of their militias.

The election wasn't conducted in homogeneous regional conditions. In some regions the elections were opened for all sides while in other regions, they done in closed ghettos where there's no opposite candidate against Hezbollah/Amal.
All anti-Hezbollah Shiites were been treated like s**t and threated to death.


In these two kinds of regions, we cannot add the number of electors mathematically in a blind fashion due to the non-homogeny of the conditions.




The sentence circled in red above is "no representative of the loyalists (14M)

The column on the left represents the opposition (Hezbollah and its allies) and the column on the right represents the loyalists ,
the circled regions are : Bent Jbeil, Tyr which are 2 Shiite regions , no loyalist candidate was allowed there.

The four circled regions at the bottom : Al Nabatieh, Al Zahraneh , Baalbeck , Al Hermel are Hezbollah strongholds , only Shiite independents that belong to no party were allowed and still they were been greatly continuously harassed and even physically attacked : http://portal.sawtbeirut.com/content/view/17447/2/



Now the questions , why the opposition votes are "more numerous":

- The non-presence of loyalist candidates in the Hezbollah regions.
-The religious obligation that Hezbollah clerics force on its follower to participate in the elections , for that reason the participation in the Hezbollah regions were always very high compared to the other regions, if the other regions were as high the numbers would be totally different .

PS: 14 March alliance won in most syndicate and universities elections . What does that indicate?



Hashberry, as a response to your silly biased article brought from the biased media " www.middle-east-online.com" which have articled entitled as "Ahmadinejad Won; Get Over it" , showing to which side they really are. I am gonna tell you some facts.

- ALL clans and I am telling , ALL clans , including Hezbollah and Aoun brought Lebanese from abroad , and those are Lebanese citizens living abroad, they were not "expatriates" as it's stupidly mentioned in the article. Hezbollah is the richest clan in Lebanon by the way =).

-Those are fully Lebanese and they have the right to vote. In fact, they MUST had the vote to vote in the Lebanese embassies in their locations ,a right which was suggested by 14 march alliance and was rejected by Nabih Berri, the Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon and the head of Amal clan (8th March alliance) , he totally know that allowing such right would not be in their favor , since Christian Lebanese people abroad are much more than their counterpart Muslims. =)


- xenon13 , Aoun Faction didn't won more votes than our Christian allies, from where you brought there. In fact, it's the change of Christian tide that led 14 March alliance to victory .



Hasberry, xenon14 and those stupid extremist leftists and leftist conspiracy theories such Madsen and co. , stop trying to make us feel bad by calling us "Pro-Western" or "West-backed" Side, because we don't feel bad about that . If 'Pro-western" means civilized then we are proud to be entitled like that , I am totally happy to be entitled as "Pro-western" than being a tool for Iran. And that goes for more than the half of the Lebanese people, their chins are high enough .


As a side note , it seems that about half of your Utopia's population (Iran) seem very unhappy by your anti-West utopic regime.

How come? What's wrong? How could this happen to Iran!! But this is Iran!! The idealistic anti-west nation that you extremist_conspiracy_leftists_theories love and respect so much!


What's the matter? Are their half populations are also "traitors" and "Pro-westerns" too?

The wind of change is blowing from Lebanon to Iran , and the never-ending babbling of people like you won't change it , you can either watch it or banging your heads to the walls . Because we don't care for what you say, we are making our choice.

well, since Le Petite Prince actually lives there, I'll give him the home-field advantage...

I like the stuff about Iran; I remember when I was in college, some leftist organizations had a 'teach in' (I'm very old, and this was during the original revolution.... They talked about how the Iranians were backing the Communists (they're in the dustheap, history, causes of..., and I could just imagine how surprised they were when the Islamists won...

Since I can only go with what I know, I'm hoping to see a Lebanon where every group can express their views without the use of high explosives, and interference from the neighbors. I hope this election leads to it.

btw - I do beleive (correct me if I'm wrong), a lot of the power-sharing is set by the last 'reliable' census, which was done by the French prior to WWII...lot of changes since then.

If Hizbullah had more sure-thing districts than this would have served to suppress its total vote and that of its allies... any way you look at it, Hizbullah won far more than March 14.

Besides, the law also states that the different communities be represented in government. Hizbullah and Amal swept the Shi'ite vote. Therefore, the Shi'tes can only be represented through them and they are the largest group.