BEIRUT, 12 May 2005 — Saadeddin Hariri, son of the slain former Premier Rafik Hariri, has thrown his hat into the ring for elections which Christian bishops warned yesterday could upset Lebanon’s delicate religious coexistence. Saadeddin, whose father was killed on Feb. 14, planned to unveil his electoral list Tuesday night but delayed the move amid cracks within the anti-Syrian Lebanese opposition.
The government, under pressure from the international community, said elections for a 128-seat Parliament will take place on four consecutive Sundays starting May 29, a month after Syria pulled its troops from Lebanon. The polls will be based on a Syrian-tailored law used in the last polls in 2000 that breaks Lebanon into large constituencies, seen as unfavorable to the large Christian minority which is demanding smaller voting areas.
Led by Maronite Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, the bishops warned that the 2000 law “violates ... coexistence between Christians and Muslims and does not allow for fair elections.
“Based on this formula, only 15 Christian deputies will be elected by Christian voters while 49 others will be chosen by mainly Muslim voters,” they said in a statement. “This means that Muslims will choose Christian deputies as was the case when Lebanon was under (Syrian) tutelage”.
The terms of the 1989 Taif accord that paved the way for the end of the 1975-1990 civil war stipulates an equal number of seats in Parliament for Christians and Muslims. But Christians elected in the larger constituencies have usually been chosen by Muslims close to the Syrian camp.
A newcomer to politics, Hariri’s son, Saadeddin, “now bears the onus of participating in the slithery Byzantine political scene in Lebanon”, the English-language Daily Star said in an editorial yesterday. “His inexperience in walking the crooked paths of the Lebanese political environment is not a detriment but rather an asset to him.”
“Because of his lack of exposure to the corrupt reality of the Lebanese state, he has the means to resist negative aspects of governance that are so prevalent here.” Saadeddin, 35, who has been heading his father’s financial empire, told thousands of supporters at his home late Monday he will carry his father’s mantle and run in one of Beirut’s three constituencies. He has until tomorrow to announce his list.
Meanwhile, Christian hard-liner Michel Aoun, who returned triumphantly Saturday from exile in France, pursued his efforts to build bridges with former foes in a bid to reform Lebanon and set up a secular state. Aoun, who was booted out by Syrian troops after his defeat in a bloody “war of liberation” in the dying days of the civil war, met separately Tuesday with Saadeddin and a delegation from Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s Shiite Amal movement.
