BEIRUT, 17 May 2005 — Campaigning kicked off yesterday for parliamentary elections in Lebanon as former civil war foes formed unlikely political alliances.
The influential head of the Maronite Church, meanwhile, reiterated calls for efforts to ensure the polls are representative of Lebanon’s different sects.
In a move seen by the press as a step toward the first genuine attempt at national reconciliation since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war, Druze chief Walid Jumblatt and Sunni leader Saad Hariri joined forces with former foes.
Jumblatt and Sitrida Geagea, wife of the jailed leader of the disbanded Lebanese Forces Christian militia, Samir Geagea, have formed an alliance and announced a joint electoral list, pledging to “turn the page on the past”.
The Lebanese Forces and militants from Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party fought ferocious battles for supremacy in the Shouf mountains, east of Beirut, during the war.
Hariri, son of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, picked Solange Gemayel, widow of slain former president and Christian warlord Bashir Gemayel, as the sole Maronite candidate on his electoral list for Beirut’s three districts.
Rafik Hariri’s assassination on Feb. 14 was the catalyst that prompted Lebanon’s Christian and Muslim opposition to unite and secure a Syrian military pullout from the country last month ahead of the crucial elections that open May 29.
The Maronite Church, led by Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, continued to complain that the elections would not meet the aspirations of Lebanon’s Christian minority. “Some politicians are only after their own interests,” Sfeir told visitors yesterday. “Elections must be representative.” Sfeir is fiercely opposed to elections on the basis of a 2000 law which he says marginalizes the Christians. The law calls for elections to be held in larger districts where the Christians are not well represented and where Christian candidates end up being chosen by Muslim voters. The Lebanese press, which hailed the new alliances, reported that Sfeir was mulling plans to hold a Christian congress to review developments in the country.
Opposition Christian MP Farid Khazen echoed Sfeir and said: “We consider the 2000 law the burial ground of democratic life in Lebanon.
“Yesterday’s (Sunday) electoral lists show that the results of the polls are being fabricated even before they are announced. An essential sector of the Lebanese people are being thrown out of the political game.”
Michel Aoun, a Christian hard-liner and former head of a military government booted out by the Syrians 15 years ago, also criticized Hariri’s Future Bloc and Jumblatt’s party, accusing them of “treason”.
Christian politicians, who want elections in smaller districts, have accused Hariri and Jumblatt of breaking ranks with the rest of the opposition and agreeing to hold elections based on the 2000 law.
The European Union deployed a team of election observers across Lebanon yesterday to prepare to monitor the four-stage elections. “Twenty-six observers arrived in Lebanon on Saturday and were deployed this morning across the country,” Jose Ignacio Salafranca Sanchez-Neyra said, adding they will be joined by 50 others next week.
