Lebanon poll about Hezbollah

2005-06-05 20:12

Bint Jbeil - As Hezbollah speeches and guerrilla songs blared from roving cars, the people of southern Lebanon voted on Sunday in parliamentary elections that the Shiite militant group sees as a referendum on its increasing political power and a response to what it calls American intervention in Lebanon.

The guerrillas and their allies are all but guaranteed a sweep of the 23 seats up for grabs in this region bordering Israel. But despite the group's appeals to send a strong signal to Washington, low turnout in some areas marred the expected victory.

"All the south came out today to send a clear message to the Americans that they embrace the resistance (Hezbollah's) weapons and that they are independent in their decision and they are not subservient to international resolutions," Sheik Nabil Kaouk, Hezbollah's commander in southern Lebanon, told reporters shortly after voting began in Sunday's second phase of four-stage parliamentary elections.

The United States, which labels Hezbollah a terrorist organization, wants the guerrilla group to abandon its weapons in line with last year's U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559. Hezbollah has refused to disarm, a position backed by Lebanese authorities.

Although they were virtually assured of success, officials of Hezbollah and its rival Shiite Amal movement, who teamed up on joint tickets, made last-minute appeals Sunday to their supporters to turn out to vote in large in a show of their popular base.

Voter turnout was noticeably heavy in Shiite areas and lower in Christian and Sunni Muslim districts, according to preliminary estimates by candidates' campaigns and local television stations.

One reason for the lack of interest by some of the 665 000 eligible voters is that six of the 23 seats were won uncontested before the balloting even began because there were no major challengers.

Those citizens who did vote expressed strong support for Hezbollah, the guerrilla group that fought Israel during an 18-year occupation.

"We should show our support for the resistance and those who were martyred for the sake of liberating this country," a smiling Kamel Hamka, 77, said as he walked out of a polling station in Bint Jbeil, a Shiite town a few kilometres from the Israeli border.

Outside a polling station in the town's center, veiled young women Hezbollah activists distributed candidate lists and cars blared guerrilla songs and speeches from loudspeakers to encourage voters.

"The people's participation in the elections is a vote for the resistance and its weapons," said Hassan Fadlallah, a Hezbollah candidate allied with Amal.

Hezbollah expects strong voter support will give it greater political influence to confront international pressure to disarm now that its Syrian backers have withdrawn from the country.

The elections, which are scheduled for two more Sundays in other regions, follow the assassination last week of an anti-Syrian journalist and continuing calls by the opposition for President Emile Lahoud's resignation. The anti-Syrian opposition hopes the elections will end Damascus' control of the legislature.

In last Sunday's polls in Beirut, anti-Syrian opposition candidates took most of the capital's 19 parliamentary seats.

But the vote in the predominantly Shiite south is centred on Hezbollah and its weapons.

Hezbollah, backed by both Syria and Iran, is fielding 14 candidates across Lebanon, hoping to build on the nine seats it already holds in the 128-member legislature. It has already won a seat in Beirut.

One contender against the Hezbollah-Amal ticket is Anwar Yassin, a Communist guerrilla who spent 17 years in Israeli prisons after a 1987 attack on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon.

Yassin, 36, a red scarf wrapped around his neck, acknowledged to LBC television that he had a tough race against the "steamrollers" of Amal and Hezbollah but nevertheless wanted to make his point.

"This is a vote to object against the de facto policy that is being imposed," he said of the groups' monopoly.

While the balloting in southern Lebanon was peaceful, the first major violence of the elections broke out in central Lebanon, where Druse supporters of opposition leader Walid Jumblatt and rival Talal Arsalan clashed. Seven people were wounded in the gunfire in the mountain resort of Sofar before troops intervened and separated the two sides, the official National News Agency reported. The region votes next Sunday.

In the south, Lebanese security officials said a Katyusha rocket set to be fired on Israel from a border area was dismantled by security forces late Saturday before it was launched.

- AP