.
“Coming, as these elections do, in the immediate aftermath of Obama’s conciliatory Cairo speech, they seem to signify a cooling off of the recent tensions between the United States and the Muslim world. I don’t think this is a coincidence.”
IMHO A bit of wishful thinking BooMan.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — It is election season in Lebanon, and Hussein H., a jobless 24-year-old from south Beirut, is looking forward to selling his vote to the highest bidder.
“Whoever pays the most will get my vote,” he said. “I won’t accept less than $800.”
[Hariri ally] Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region are arming their allies here with campaign money in place of weapons. One adviser to the Saudi government, who added that the Saudi contribution was likely to reach hundreds of millions of dollars in a country of only four million people, said:
- “We are putting a lot into this. We’re supporting candidates running against Hezbollah, and we’re going to make Iran feel the pressure.”
Despite the vast amounts being spent, many Lebanese see the race — which pits Hezbollah and its allies against a fractious coalition of more West-friendly political groups — as almost irrelevant. Lebanon’s sectarian political structure virtually guarantees a continuation of the current “national unity” government, in which the winning coalition in the 128-seat Parliament grants the loser veto powers to preserve civil peace.
Currently, political parties or coalitions usually print up their own distinctive ballots and hand them to voters before they walk into the booth, making it easier to be sure they are getting the votes they have paid for.
Some voters, especially in competitive districts, receive cold calls offering cash for their vote. But mostly the political machines work through local patriarchs known as “electoral keys,” who can deliver the votes of an entire clan in exchange for money or services — scholarships, a hospital, repaved roads and so on.
Because each seat in the Lebanese Parliament is designated by religious sect, the elections tend to reinforce the essentially feudal power structure of Lebanon, with a network of men from known families providing for each sect and region.
Christian supporters of Michel Aoun said that the alliance with Mr. Hariri and his Saudi-backed March 14 group was more dangerous to Christians. “What am I going to tell you, Hezbollah is a party defending Lebanon,” said George Anid. “The Shia have simple hearts like us and they will protect us.”
From wikipedia:
On March 14, 1989, after a Syrian attack on the Baabda presidential palace and on the Lebanese Ministry of Defense in Yarze, Aoun declared Liberation war against the Syrian army which was better armed than the Lebanese forces (some 40,000 Syrian troops were in Lebanon at the time). The Syrians were supported by the US government led by George H. Bush in exchange for their support against Saddam Hussein.[5] Over the next few months Aoun’s army and the Syrians exchanged artillery fire in Beirut until only 100,000 people remained from the original 1 million, the rest fled the area.[5] During this period Aoun became critical of American support for Syria and moved closer to Iraq, accepting arms supplies from Saddam Hussein.
The end approached for Aoun when his Iraqi ally, Saddam Hussein, launched his invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. Syria’s President Hafez al-Assad sided with the United States. In return, the United States agreed to support Syria’s interests in Lebanon. On October 13, with American permission, Syrian forces attacked the presidential palace in Baabda, where Aoun was holed up. Not very long after the attacks, Aoun was asked to leave Lebanon with the full support of the French Ambassador, there he surrendered to Syrians via a radio address, leaving his troops at the mercy of the Syrian forces. Ten months later Aoun went into exile in France, where he led a political party, the Free Patriotic Movement.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
