Old War Rivals Take Battle to Lebanon Polls

Shoving aside their hastily forged anti-Syrian alliance, a pair of iconic civil war veterans did bitter battle at the ballot box Sunday in the most keenly contested round of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections.

The outspoken, perennially divisive Gen. Michel Aoun, fresh from nearly 15 years in exile in France, squared off against Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. The two had joined forces this year to end nearly three decades of Syrian domination. But after Syria withdrew its soldiers in April, Lebanese leaders turned on one another in heated power plays designed to maximize their influence in the new government.

Early returns indicated that Aoun was pulling ahead in key regions, and Jumblatt was conceding losses by Sunday night. A victory for Aoun would be a slap to Jumblatt’s anti-Syrian coalition and a reminder of the deep fractures that still split Lebanon. Final results won’t be known until today.

The staggered polls kicked off in Beirut on May 29 and will wrap up in the north next weekend. The election was supposed to be the first without direct Syrian interference since the civil war, but the voting was shadowed by accusations of Syrian meddling.

“The Syrians will always try to stir things up here between us, but we’ve had enough of it,” said Mirna Keyrouz, 24, who voted in the Christian town of Fatka, north of Beirut. “We are saying whatever we want and voting for whomever we want. We’re not scared of them anymore.”

Despite the retreat of Syrian soldiers, Damascus’ hold on Lebanon remains a matter of debate. U.S. and some Lebanese officials have accused Syria of drawing up a hit list targeting senior Lebanese political figures in an attempt to regain control over the small Mediterranean country. Syria has flatly denied the charge. But this month’s assassination of a Lebanese journalist critical of Syria deepened suspicions.

Terje Roed-Larsen, special representative of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, visited the Syrian capital on Sunday for talks with President Bashar Assad. The visit comes days after Annan announced plans to send inspectors back to Lebanon to check reports that Syrian intelligence officers may still be operating there. A U.N. report in May verified the Syrian withdrawal, but allegations of intelligence activities have continued.

The Syrian ambassador to the United States called the accusations “a sinister campaign against Syria that is unjustified, inaccurate and unfair.”

“There are forces that do not want to see a good, friendly, brotherly relation between Syria and Lebanon,” Imad Moustapha said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” “And they are creating these [myths] and these stories about Syria going to kill Lebanese leaders.”

The new Lebanese legislature will face the daunting tasks of deciding the fate of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud and debating the disarmament of the militant Shiite group Hezbollah. The same U.N. Security Council resolution that demanded the withdrawal of all foreign soldiers from Lebanon also called for disarmament. But Hezbollah triumphed in last week’s elections and insisted that it wouldn’t give up its guns.

The new parliament will also have to deal with the sensitive issue of reshaping ties with Syria and formulating a representative electoral law to replace the current Syrian-sponsored one.

The coming months will be a test for Lebanon’s shaky national unity. The Syrian pullout was sparked by massive protests and intense international pressure after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many people in Lebanon blamed his death on Damascus and its local allies, and joined forces to demand Syria’s ouster.

But the euphoric unity among Christians, Druze and Sunni Muslims has since been eroded by the political jockeying of aging warlords and tribal chieftains who still dominate the political scene.

Lebanon has always been a land of shifting political alliances, and Sunday’s showdown was no exception. Aoun, a Maronite Christian ex-army commander who waged and lost a “war of liberation” against Syrian forces in the waning days of the 1975-90 civil war, confounded expectations by teaming up on electoral lists with remnants of the old, pro-Syria regime.

“They brought Michel Aoun back ... to return through the back door,” Jumblatt told the LBC satellite channel.

But Jumblatt also forged unlikely alliances, joining up with longtime Christian foes, the Lebanese Forces, despite their bloody civil war history.

The mixed Christian-Druze village of Aley, carved into the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean above Beirut, emerged as the tightest contest between the two rival tickets headed by Aoun and Jumblatt. Posters of the candidates were plastered on every surface Sunday -- walls, electricity polls, T-shirts, cars and trees -- creating a mosaic of faces.

Supporters loitered around the polling booths: Aoun loyalists in their trademark orange T-shirts and Druze men in their distinctive white caps and traditional baggy, black pants.

Tensions surfaced early as scuffles broke out between rival parties at one of the main polling stations here. Rifle-toting soldiers who had been positioned outside the booths intervened, and truckloads of army reinforcements deployed in the town.

Similar, short-lived dust-ups were reported in a number of villages throughout the central Mount Lebanon region and the Bekaa Valley in the east.

“The atmosphere is tense,” said Ramzi Chehayeb, a 52-year-old Druze who fled to Saudi Arabia during the war and returned in 1990. “At least now they’re trading blows instead of bullets.”

Chehayeb said he was voting for Jumblatt’s ticket. “This is Jumblatt’s territory,” he said proudly. “Aoun has nothing here. He wasn’t even in the country for 15 years, and now he wants to just parachute onto the scene.”

“So what if he wasn’t here?” retorted an Aoun supporter who was listening closely outside the polling station. “At least that means he didn’t create the mess the country is in now.”

The previous two rounds of voting, in the capital and the Shiite-dominated south, were largely one-horse races that drew tepid turnouts widely attributed to the lack of competition.

The electoral ticket headed by Saad Hariri, son of the slain former premier, swept the Beirut polls, and the pro-Syrian parties of Hezbollah and Amal clinched every seat in the south.

But turnout appeared to be high Sunday, as voters thronged polling stations to decide 58 of the parliament’s 128 seats. Under Lebanon’s system of doling out political appointments according to religion, the parliament must be evenly divided between Christians and Muslims.

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Times staff writer Stack reported from Damascus and special correspondent Abouzeid from Aley.