Supporters of Saad Hariri drive a car with a windshield they say was smashed by their rivals in Tripoli. (AFP)

TRIPOLI, Lebanon, 20 June 2005 — Lebanon’s main anti-Syrian opposition alliance led by Saad Hariri said it was headed for a majority in Parliament after claiming a stunning win in yesterday’s decisive final round of elections.

The alliance was set to win the 21 seats it needed out of the 28 up for grabs in the voting in the north, according to incomplete results from the count witnessed by his campaign staff.

“According to incomplete results, we are heading for a total victory,” leading candidate Boutros Harb told the Future Television channel of Hariri, son of slain Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

If confirmed by official results today, the outcome would mark a major coup for the alliance, which had faced an uphill battle after suffering a rout in the third round of elections the previous weekend.

The outcome would give Hariri, a 35-year-old businessman turned politician, the opportunity to become prime minister, following in the footsteps of his slain father who held the post five times.

But it would fall short of the two-thirds majority required to change the constitution to cut short the term of under-fire pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, who has more than two years in office after a controversial Damascus-inspired extension last September.

The four-round elections, which kicked off on May 29, were the first since neighboring Syria ended its three-decade troop presence in April amid the political turmoil that followed the February assassination of Hariri.

Troops and police patrolled the streets as voters cast their ballots in Mediterranean coastal towns, remote villages near the Syrian border and up the biblical Cedar mountains of the north. Candidates’ supporters drove through cities and farming towns as polls opened, honking horns and waving posters and party flags to drum up support.

In the remote, poor mountain region of Akkar, cars pulled in carrying area residents who live in Beirut, returning to their hometowns to vote. In Tripoli, the mainly Sunni capital of the north, candidate posters hung on buildings, trees and electricity poles. There, as well as in Zghorta, a major Christian town nearby, people danced in the streets to the beat of drums in a largely festive and peaceful atmosphere.

About 680,000 men and women were eligible to vote yesterday. Voters streamed during the 11 hours of balloting to public school and municipal halls to cast their ballots. In one small remote Akkar village, Kfar Noun, a ballot box was placed under an old oak tree next to a church.

Opposing Saad Hariri for seats in the 128-seat house was an unlikely alliance between Christian firebrand and former exile Michel Aoun and a raft of pro-Syrian figures.

With 21 seats already in the bag from previous rounds, Aoun had threatened to upset the Hariri list’s ambition to take sole control of the long Syrian-dominated legislature.

Hariri’s bloc won 44 seats in previous rounds while 35 seats went to the pro-Syrian alliance of Shiite factions Amal and Hezbollah.

Amid a fierce race between the Aoun and Hariri lists, turnout yesterday reached 48 percent, according to preliminary official estimates, well up on the 40 percent recorded in the last elections in the northern region in 2000.

In a boost for Hariri, participation reached 42 percent in the main northern city of Tripoli, where turnout had been sufficiently low two hours before the close of polls for him to issued an anxious televised appeal to late voters.

“If you don’t vote, I won’t be able to change anything,” Hariri had warned.

In a vitriolic campaign, both sides had repeatedly attacked each other’s anti-Syrian credentials, with Aoun accusing Hariri and his allies of being belated converts to the cause, while they took aim at his pro-Damascus allies.

Hariri’s huge personal fortune also fanned allegations of vote buying.

The official ANI news agency reported some minor incidents, including a man arrested in Tripoli after a grenade was found on him, and an exchange of fire between soldiers and a passing car.

In the town of Abbudieh on the Syrian border, an AFP photographer saw security forces intervene after rival supporters exchanged blows and smashed car windscreens.

A clear-cut outcome was likely to provide a major boost for a country which could ill afford an extended period of uncertainty.

The turmoil following February’s massive bomb blast that killed Hariri already dented confidence in an economy burdened with a massive national debt of some $35.5 billion. The central bank warned last week that it expected gross domestic product to fall this year, with inflation of four percent outstripping growth of two percent.

Security was tight for the election in a region where Syrian troops held sway for years.

As he cast his vote in Tripoli, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati rejected Hariri bloc accusations that a continuing Syrian intelligence presence had intimidated voters.

“The voting has been completely free,” insisted Miqati, who was approved as a compromise figurehead by the opposition despite his links with Damascus. “There’s been no intervention by Syria to influence voters. There are no Syrian agents at work.”