Lebanon Election

Lebanon Election

Lebanon is in the process of holding its first general elections for more than 30 years without the heavy shadow of a Syrian military presence over much of the country. The Syrians pulled out in April, after huge demonstrations in Beirut -- and international condemnation -- following the assassination of the former Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri. His death and the recent killing of a prominent anti-Syrian journalist, Samir Kassir, have been blamed by many Lebanese on Syria - a charge the Syrians have strongly denied.

The first round of the elections was held last Sunday in Beirut and over the next few weeks there'll be voting in other parts of the country. Jim Muir, for many years the BBC's correspondent in Lebanon, has been considering how much has changed -- and how much hasn't.

This is an election dominated by the martyrs and ghosts of the past. In the first round of voting, for the 19 Beirut seats, it was the newest martyr, the Sunni muslim former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, whose image was everywhere, and who swept all before him. Mr Hariri died instantly on February the 14th when his motorcade was caught in a massive explosion which, rightly or wrongly, was instantly and instinctively blamed by most Lebanese on the Syrians. It triggered the huge demonstrations that brought together hundreds of thousands of people in Beirut with one single demand: Syria, out.

The list put together by Rafiq al-Hariri's son and political heir, Saad, steamrollered the Beirut elections, taking every single seat. The young Saad, just 35, has no political experience at all -- he was running his billionaire father's company in Saudi Arabia when he was suddenly pitchforked into this new life. Because the result was a foregone conclusion, the turnout was low - 27 per cent overall, though quite a bit higher among Sunni voters, many of whom felt it a duty to pay this last act of allegiance to their biggest martyr, whose picture, with or without young Saad, was all over Beirut.

But Rafiq al-Hariri is far from being the only martyr whose memory is running in these elections. On the same coalition list for Beirut was Solange Gemayel. Her husband Beshir, who commanded the main Christian militia at the time, was elected President with Israeli help in 1982, only to die under the rubble of his party headquarters when it was demolished by a huge bomb just a few weeks later.

Another presidential widow is running in the final round of voting, in the north of the country. Nayla Muawwad's husband Rene was elected president just after the peace agreement for Lebanon was reached in Taif, Saudi Arabia, in 1989. He too only survived a few weeks, before he was blown to smithereens in a massive car bomb blast in Beirut.

At the core of the anti-Syrian coalition that's set to dominate the new parliament, is the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. Like his political partner Saad al-Hariri, he too is nursing a bitter grudge against the Syrians. In 1977, his father Kamal, who was a socialist and philosopher as well as the feudal leader of the Druze, fell out with Damascus. He died in a well-organised ambush in the Shouf mountains. Walid inherited his political mantle, but for many years -- including long periods of close alliance with Syria -- he kept quiet about who he believed killed his father. Now, he openly accuses Damascus.

The Syrian withdrawal and all its repercussions have of course brought about a sea-change in the Lebanese political climate, the new Lebanese parliament is expected to have an anti-Syrian majority, though Syrian influence will not be competely excluded.

But anyone who's expecting to see a sea of new FACES as a result of all this change, is going to be disappointed. It was yet another candidate son of a slain father -- Sulaiman Franjieh, whose father Tony was killed by a rival Maronite Christian militia in 1978 -- who put his finger on it. He said, Lebanon's the only country, where politics can turn 180 degrees, but the politicans stay the same.

The same political clans and party bosses who've been dominating the country's politics for decades, have ensured their survival by doing electoral deals with one another to reduce or even eliminate competition. They'll continue to predominate in the new parliament, as they did in the previous one, but under different colours. Rafiq al-Hariri himself, and Walid Jumblatt, and others, were all considered pro-Syrian at the time of the last election in the year 2000. Now times have changed, the mood has changed, but the players largely have not.

The only real note of friction and competition has been introduced by the maverick former general, Michel Aoun, who returned recently from 15 years in exile. He at least has consistently opposed the Syrians from start to finish. But he's been unable to blend in with the other factions in the former opposition, so he'll be battling with them at the polls in the same central mountains where in the late 80s he was battling with them with guns.

But otherwise, in most areas, these first Syria-free elections for over thirty years, have been a disappointing stitch-up. That's one reason why they've stirred so little genuine enthusiasm among many ordinary people here. They know the basic situation's changed with the Syrian withdrawal, but they can't see much actual difference. Maybe once the new parliament's in place and pushing for change -- not least amending a Syrian-engineered election law that moved constituency boundaries so that Christian deputies were being elected mainly by Muslims -- things will start to feel different. But the Lebanese are lumbered with a highly-sectarian political system which makes it hard for people to feel this is real democracy, that their voice is really being heard, that their votes can really make a difference. And there's little prospect at the moment, for any radical change to that.