BEIRUT, 19 June 2005 — Lebanon’s wild and sorrowful history and its hope for the future are reflected in the candidates standing in its elections — the uncle of a Sept. 11 hijacker, an ex-prisoner of the Israelis, the widow of an assassinated president-elect, the wife of a jailed warlord. The elections are the first held without foreign interference in three decades, and many of the candidates could not have run in the past, when Syrian military intelligence agents controlled much of Lebanese life.
Syrian troops withdrew in April, ending a 29-year presence in their western neighbor. The other main foreign contender in Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, Israel, pulled its forces from the south in 2000. The race now is seeing the return of many figures from that civil war — but often in new, unexpected alignments. One is Michel Aoun, former military commander who lost a war against Syrian forces in 1989 and returned from France in May after 14 years’ exile.
There is also the hope for the future. Saad Hariri, a 35-year-old political novice, expects to lead the biggest bloc in Parliament. He is the son of slain former Premier Rafik Hariri, whose February assassination sparked protests and international uproar that forced Syria to withdraw from Lebanon.
One of his allies seeking a northern seat is the wife of Samir Geagea, a notorious former Christian warlord now in prison for killing his political opponents.
Setrida Geagea has taken up the leadership of the right-wing Lebanese Forces group, the Christians’ former civil war militia, relaying instructions from her husband. In early June, she stumped on the campaign trail alongside Hariri before a mostly Muslim crowd in Akkar — one of several mainly Muslim towns in the constituency she’s seeking.
The appearance would have been unthinkable a few months ago, when her group was rejected as extremist, outlawed by the government and with a history of ties to Israel. But the group gained acceptance after it joined Muslims and other Christians in anti-Syria demonstrations in Beirut after Hariri’s assassination. At the rally, Setrida said she came to Akkar “to consecrate this great dream ... of national unity.”
Solange Gemayel — the widow of Bashir Gemayel, the right-wing Christian president-elect who was killed in a bomb blast in 1982 days before he was scheduled to take office — won in Beirut uncontested.
