Williams: UN will respect elections’ outcome no matter what
May 28, 2009UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams told Al-Akhbar newspaper on Thursday that the UN will respect the will of the Lebanese in choosing their representatives in parliament regardless of which party wins the majority on June 7.
http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=95471===================
Lavrov Drops by Lebanon After Biden
26 May 2009
Combined ReportsForeign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that the international community must recognize the result of Lebanon's general election next month irrespective of who wins a majority.
The election on June 7 pits an alliance including Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah against an anti-Syrian coalition that currently holds a majority in the parliament.
Lavrov held talks in Beirut with Lebanon's president, prime minister and house speaker shortly after a one-day trip by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.
"It is important that the results of these elections are recognized not only by Lebanese society but also everyone who is interested in the continued and natural development of Lebanon as a state, hence, the international community," Lavrov said.
Many pundits predict gains for Hezbollah and its allies, who include Christian leader Michel Aoun, in a tight vote that may lead to the formation of another national unity government.
"We will deal with all those chosen by the Lebanese people. We [will] respect this choice and this vote," Lavrov said through an interpreter.
Russia has been critical of Hezbollah over the past few years, but Moscow, which has traditionally enjoyed good ties with Damascus, has expressed more neutral views about Lebanese political issues than Washington.
Der Spiegel reported Saturday that an international tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri had new information that Hezbollah was behind the killing. Hariri was killed in a Beirut bomb blast on Feb. 14, 2005.
Lavrov on Monday warned against any attempts to politicize the work of the tribunal.
"We consider what was published in Der Spiegel an attempt to politicize matters, and we consider all such attempts provocative," he said.
Lavrov signed a book of condolences at Hariri's grave on Monday.
Biden had linked U.S. aid levels for Lebanon to the outcome of the election and described Hezbollah, without mentioning the group by name, as "spoilers of peace."
"We will evaluate the shape of our assistance program based on the composition of the new government and the policies it advocates," Biden said Friday. Washington classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist group.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/377408.htm
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How far will US support for Lebanon go?
22/5/09BBC News, Beirut
The last time a US vice-president came to Beirut was in 1983, when George Bush Senior flew hurriedly in following a suicide truck bomb attack which blew up a US marine barracks, killing more than 240 soldiers.
That, and a similar demolition of the US embassy in Beirut, persuaded President Ronald Reagan to pull the marines out of Lebanon, a humiliating retreat in the face of local forces backed by Syria and Iran.
More than 25 years on, was Vice-President Joseph Biden visiting Lebanon in the hope of averting another big setback to US influence at the same hands - but this time at the polling booths?
After talks with President Michel Suleiman - who is regarded as neutral in the sharply-polarised Lebanese arena - Mr Biden insisted he had not come to back any Lebanese party or person, but rather to support the country's independence and sovereignty.
Neutrality?
But at the same time, he urged "those who think about standing with the spoilers of peace not to miss this opportunity to walk away from the spoilers" - a remark clearly aimed at Hezbollah and its allies.
Although the outcome hinges on voting results in a few hard-to-predict constituencies, the Hezbollah-led opposition stands a good chance of coming out narrowly ahead of the Western-backed coalition that the Americans would clearly like to see win.
Mr Biden also warned of likely consequences if Hezbollah and its allies were to prevail in the 7 June poll and form the kind of government Washington would frown on.
The administration, he said, "will evaluate the shape of our assistance programmes based on the composition of the new government and the policies it advocates."
He then went off to see the Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, who is an ally of Hezbollah, and the Prime Minister, Fuad Siniora, who belongs to the Western-backed coalition.
If that implied balance, the impression was swiftly undermined by a later, unpublicised meeting behind closed doors in a private home with leaders of the pro-Western coalition who hold no official posts.
But Mr Biden insisted that Washington's commitment was to Lebanon, its sovereignty and independence.
To back that up, he appeared with the Defence Minister, Elias al-Murr, at a display of some of the military hardware the US has supplied to the Lebanese Army in recent years.
Mr al-Murr said that, in a visit to Washington last month, he had been given a written commitment by Defence Secretary Robert Gates to provide the Lebanese Army with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of arms and training over a five-year period, including helicopters and drones.
Military strength
Although that commitment might be reviewed in the light of the election results, Washington seems confident that the Lebanese Army can hold together and be built on as a neutral national institution despite the strain of coexistence with Hezbollah, whose military strength is greater.
Despite Mr Biden's protestations of neutrality, Hezbollah itself lost no time in dubbing his visit "a clear and detailed interference in Lebanese affairs" which raised "strong doubts about its real motivations."
As Mr Biden was showing off US military hardware in Beirut, Hezbollah was staging its own show of strength in Nabatieh, a provincial centre south-east of the capital.
Thousands of supporters gathered to watch a relayed speech from their leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, to mark the anniversary of Israel's ignominious withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 under the pressure of Hezbollah attacks.
But US leaders may already have concluded that a narrow win by the Hezbollah-led coalition would not be the end of the world.
Hezbollah itself is only putting forward 11 candidates in the contest for 128 parliamentary seats.
The other elements in the opposition coalition come from allies such as the mainstream Shia Amal movement, headed by parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri, and the Free Patriotic Movement of the Christian leader Michel Aoun, once a fierce opponent of Syria but now reconciled with Damascus and likely to do well in many Christian areas.
So, while generally unwelcome to the West, a narrow victory by the opposition would produce a picture very different from, for example, the Hamas takeover in Gaza, which was violent and absolute.
The lines could be further blurred if Washington's diplomatic overtures to the Lebanese opposition's backers, Iran and Syria, were to produce results.
The Americans' closest ally, Britain, is already allowing its diplomats to hold official contacts with Hezbollah's "political wing", although the movement is still shunned by Washington as a "terrorist" group.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8064770.stm
France Pledges Commitment to Lebanon Government, No Matter Election Results
20/5/09
France purportedly will not halt dialogue with the next Lebanon government whatever the results of the parliamentary polls were and said it favors President Michel Suleiman to remain in the "middle" after the formation of the new administration.
Pan-Arab daily Al Hayat on Wednesday quoted a well-informed French source as saying that the important elements from France's point of view were that the Lebanon government should not be a party against the other – meaning that the Shiites will not rule the Sunnis and that there won't be an axis composed of Hizbullah and Gen. Michel Aoun that would possess an absolute majority.
The other desire was that Suleiman stays in the middle and remains the legitimate president and guarantor of Lebanon's independence and stability "before and after elections."
The source said that the main thing for France is to ensure that "calm" prevails over Lebanon during elections, particularly since it is the first time that polls take place in a single day across the country.
He said a single-day election requires "excellent organization" – with Lebanese security forces working to ensure the security of the voting process and efforts by local and international observers to ensure transparency of the ballot.
The source warned that the "possible perils of elections is that there is objection to the results either politically or in the street."
France will maintain dialogue with the next Lebanon government no matter what the elections results were, the source added.
He stressed, however, that the new government should remain committed to economic reforms and Paris-3 as well as ensure respect for international legitimacy.
The source warned that the "possible perils of elections is that there is objection to the results either politically or in the street."
He said if Hizbullah and Aoun win, it is in the interest of the victor to exhibit a modest victory, and not to shake stability that could scare home and foreign countries.
France believed it was important to be in harmony with U.S. President Barack Obama who will visit Paris June 6, regarding his reaction in the event Hizbullah came first in the elections.
On the imminent Israeli military exercises along the border with Lebanon, France expressed hope that the maneuvers would not lead to "negative developments that would harm the region's security and stability."
http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/0/B7A37358AA070342C22575BC001D2BE2?OpenDocument
Foreign Money Seeks to Buy Lebanese Votes
By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: April 22, 2009
“Whoever pays the most will get my vote,” he said. “I won’t accept less than $800.”
He may get more. The parliamentary elections here in June are shaping up to be among the most expensive ever held anywhere, with hundreds of millions of dollars streaming into this small country from around the globe.
Lebanon has long been seen as a battleground for regional influence, and now, with no more foreign armies on the ground, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region are arming their allies here with campaign money in place of weapons. The result is a race that is widely seen as the freest and most competitive to be held here in decades, with a record number of candidates taking part. But it may also be the most corrupt.
Votes are being bought with cash or in-kind services. Candidates pay their competitors huge sums to withdraw. The price of favorable TV news coverage is rising, and thousands of expatriate Lebanese are being flown home, free, to vote in contested districts. The payments, according to voters, election monitors and various past and current candidates interviewed for this article, nurture a deep popular cynicism about politics in Lebanon, which is nominally perhaps the most democratic Arab state but in practice is largely governed through patronage and sectarian and clan loyalty.
Despite the vast amounts being spent, many Lebanese see the race — which pits Hezbollah and its allies against a fractious coalition of more West-friendly political groups — as almost irrelevant. Lebanon’s sectarian political structure virtually guarantees a continuation of the current “national unity” government, in which the winning coalition in the 128-seat Parliament grants the loser veto powers to preserve civil peace.
Still, even a narrow win by Hezbollah and its allies, now in the parliamentary opposition, would be seen as a victory for Iran — which has financed Hezbollah for decades — and a blow to American allies in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt. So the money flows.
“We are putting a lot into this,” said one adviser to the Saudi government, who added that the Saudi contribution was likely to reach hundreds of millions of dollars in a country of only four million people. “We’re supporting candidates running against Hezbollah, and we’re going to make Iran feel the pressure.”
As it happens, Lebanon has campaign spending limits this year for the first time, and the Arab world’s first system to monitor that spending, by the Lebanese chapter of Transparency International. But the limits — which are very loose to begin with — apply only in the last two months of the campaign. And they are laughably easy to circumvent, according to election monitors and Lebanese officials.
Reformers have tried and failed to introduce a uniform national ballot, which could reduce the influence of money and make the system less vulnerable to fraud. Currently, political parties or coalitions usually print up their own distinctive ballots and hand them to voters before they walk into the booth, making it easier to be sure they are getting the votes they have paid for.
Some voters, especially in competitive districts, receive cold calls offering cash for their vote. But mostly the political machines work through local patriarchs known as “electoral keys,” who can deliver the votes of an entire clan in exchange for money or services — scholarships, a hospital, repaved roads and so on.
In a country where the average public school teacher earns less than $700 a month, these payments are a significant source of support for many communities. And because each seat in the Lebanese Parliament is designated by religious sect, the elections tend to reinforce the essentially feudal power structure of Lebanon, with a network of men from known families providing for each sect and region.
All the major political groups deny buying votes, which is illegal under Lebanese law, but election monitors acknowledge that it is a routine practice. “Since the 1990s, more money has been coming in,” said Paul Salem, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center here.
“Unfortunately, the system adjusts to that and in a way comes to expect it, especially among the poor.”
In fact, many poorer Lebanese look to the elections as a kind of Christmas, when cash, health-care vouchers, meals and other handouts are abundant.
The largess extends across the globe. From Brazil to Australia, thousands of expatriates are being offered free plane trips back home to vote. Saad Hariri, the billionaire leader of the current parliamentary majority and a Saudi ally, is reputed to be the biggest election spender. It may not have helped that he kicked off his campaign with a gaudy televised event that resembled the set of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” But members of his movement say that the accusation is unfair, and that their own money is outmatched by the hundreds of millions of dollars Iran has given to Hezbollah over the years.
Candidates and political parties generally will not admit to receiving money from abroad.
One of them, however, recently broke with convention by acknowledging it openly. Ahmed al-Asaad, 46, said that Saudi Arabia’s government was a “significant source of support” for his campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. He said his goal was to pull the Shiites of Lebanon away from Iran.
“I need tools to fight back, and if the Saudis have an interest in building a state here, why shouldn’t I take advantage of that?” said Mr. Asaad, an American-educated businessman, during an interview at his office just outside Beirut.
Candidates who do not ally themselves with a powerful patronage machine are almost unheard of here.
Walid Maalouf, a banker who worked briefly as a diplomat while living in the United States, is running an independent campaign on a shoestring budget, barnstorming from town to town in his mountain district. He says most people in the villages tell him he is the only politician who bothers to visit them. They are grateful, but he does not offer cash or patronage, and they are unsure what to think of him.
Recently, Mr. Maalouf said, he was trying to explain to a village leader that he should think of candidates as employees, not patrons — someone they would hire to represent them effectively in the government.
“He looked at me,” Mr. Maalouf recalled, “and then he said, ‘Go back to America.’ ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/world/middleeast/23lebanon.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=global-home
