Lebanese voters went to the polls on Sunday at the start of the first parliamentary election in 30 years that has not been marred by civil war or heavy-handed Syrian meddling.
The campaign, led by Saad Hariri (35) the son of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister who was assassinated in February, was celebrating victory after incomplete results showed it had swept Beirut’s 19 parliamentary seats.
The official results are not due until Monday, and voting in the rest of the country is still to come.
But a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to the Associated Press that the Hariri campaign’s prediction, with most of the votes counted and the ticket’s margin of votes, was insurmountable.
After the heady days of street demonstrations that toppled the Syrian-backed government and helped to drive Syrian forces out of the country just a few weeks ago, the first phase of the election, in the capital, Beirut, proved an anti-climax.
Amid complaints of a carve-up by political leaders — 10 of the 19 Beirut seats have already returned candidates unopposed — the big question was how many of the city’s 420 000 electors would bother to vote.
On Sunday night, Hassan al-Sabaa, the interior minister, put turnout at 28%, which was less than the 35% for the last election under Syrian domination in 2000, an embarrassment to the Hariri bloc.
In an effort to get the voters out earlier in the day, fleets of cars decorated with Hariri posters, ferried supporters to the polls.
Voting appeared fairly brisk in the morning but had dwindled to a trickle by early afternoon.
An interior ministry official put the turnout during the first six hours at only 18,5%.
Wearing jeans and an open-neck shirt and surrounded by bodyguards in suits, Hariri toured the polling stations, where supporters showered him with rice and chanted his father’s name. He also visited to his father’s grave.
Riding a wave of sympathy for his murdered father, who many believe was killed by pro-Syrian elements, he urged people to vote ”against the criminals”.
”The people will have their say today and demonstrate their loyalty to Rafik Hariri,” he said. ”Those who are against us today do not want a unified country or a unified Beirut.”
Elsewhere, supporters of Christian leader Michel Aoun, who has not been included in Hariri’s alliance, handed out stickers urging voters to boycott ”the appointments” (as they describe the election).
The Armenian Tashnag party, which is also disaffected over the backroom electoral deals, issued leaflets saying: ”No participation without proper representation for all in Beirut.”
At a polling station near the American University, one disgruntled voter said he was supporting an independent candidate. ”We are not against Saad Hariri,” he said, ”but we don’t want the people that he has put here for us. We want to choose our own people.”
More than 100 observers from the European Union and the United Nations watched the vote for irregularities, the first time Lebanon has permitted foreign scrutiny.
”I see it as a potential for a new start,” said US senator Joseph Biden, who came to watch the balloting. Biden said the new Parliament may not be fundamentally different from the previous one, but said the atmosphere had improved because ”there’s an occupying force that’s gone”. – Guardian Unlimited Â