BEIRUT, 7 August 2007 — Lebanon’s Western-backed ruling majority was dealt a blow yesterday in by-elections that split the country’s Christian camp in two and boosted the Syrian-backed opposition ahead of a presidential poll.
Official results showed the candidate representing opposition leader Michel Aoun winning by a slim margin of 418 votes over former President Amin Gemayel, who was supported by the ruling coalition.
Camille Khoury won 39,534 votes as against 39,116 for Gemayel.
Aoun and Gemayel both made separate calls for unity after the results were announced but bickered over who has the mandate to represent their community.
“These elections have shown that the solution to the Lebanese crisis is found in respect for institutions. This is why I am calling for reconciliation between Christians... so that presidential commitments can be respected,” Gemayel told a news conference.
“These elections were effectively a test. They have shown that Gen. Aoun’s support is in broad decline in Christian regions because of the policies he has followed.”
Aoun seemed to strike a conciliatory note in a subsequent news conference of his own, but also claimed support from all Christian confessions as well as Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
“Gemayel has spoken of a reconciliation under the aegis of the Maronite (Christian) patriarch. We are in agreement on this and I extend my hand,” he said.
“But I dispute his analysis that I am not representative of Christians. Maronites are not the only Christians,” he added.
Aoun called the Metn region where Sunday’s vote took place a “microcosm” of Lebanese society: “There are Maronites, Orthodox, Armenians, Shiites and Sunnis. We won in a diverse constituency, which means we are popular in all the communities.”
The by-elections were to replace two murdered anti-Syrian MPs, the latest in a spate of politically linked killings that have rocked the country since the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The outcome of the vote was important as it showed which way the country’s divided Christian community was leaning ahead of a presidential election scheduled for next month.
Lebanon’s president is traditionally a Maronite Christian who is chosen by Parliament.
Gemayel was vying to replace his son Pierre, a Christian Cabinet member and lawmaker who was shot dead last November. In Beirut, the vote was to replace Walid Eido, a Sunni Muslim lawmaker who was killed in a car bomb in June.
Eido’s seat was easily won by pro-government candidate Mohamad Amin Itani.
Several Lebanese newspapers yesterday said that although Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement emerged the winner in the weekend poll, the party had nonetheless been weakened politically as it only clinched a narrow victory.
“A difference of 418 votes: a fake victory,” blared a headline in the pro-government French daily L’Orient Le Jour.
The paper said that had it not been for the support of the Armenian community in one district, where Gemayel alleged vote-rigging, Aoun’s party would have been trampled in the poll.
But the opposition newspaper Al-Akhbar said that although Aoun won by a slim margin, the results put to rest claims by the ruling majority that he no longer represented the Christian community.
