A fraction of eligible Lebanese voters went to the polls today to choose between March 14's and Syria's candidates. I say fraction because a large number of registered voters reside outside the country, where they work and save the economy from collapse through remittances. Interestingly, Lebanon was quicker to naturalize some 90,000 Armenians, nomads, Palestinians and Syrians in a controversial naturalization law designed to give the Syrian regime guaranteed votes in Tripoli, Beirut, Metn, Bekaa and the south. Lebanese residing abroad, however, cannot vote.
For that, a 45%+ turnout in Metn is considered high, and to an extent, Beirut's 18%. With the voting age in Lebanon stuck at 21, energized elders constitute the majority of voters. This might explain why we never see new faces in parliament, and why candidates operate in the shadow of their leaders. For instance, no one had ever heard of Aoun's Camille Khoury. And very few even heard his voice during the electoral campaign. The same goes for Saad Hariri's candidate, whose name many don't even remember.
Early results are showing a slight lead for Amin Gemayel in Metn. Khoury lost in his own village, and Ain Alaq, which was the site of a terrorist bombing, voted for Gemayel. Watch this space for updates.
Update. The Future Movement (March 14) candidate in Beirut, Mohammad Itani, can be projected as the winner of the Beirut by-election, with 12733 votes in 150 out of 250 "qalams" .
Update 2. LBC says Metn election is too close to call. Awaiting the results from two remaining boxes.
Update 3. Michel Aoun has just announced the victory of his candidate, Camille Khoury. Aoun called on his supporters to go to Jdeideh (where the votes are being counted) to counter "attempts to cancel some of the results".
Update 4. Gemayel's advisor Saim Sayegh told Marcel Ghanem on LBC that the count was not over, denying that Aoun's candidate had won. The Lebanese Forces website reports 320 boxes out of 348 counted, with 37,703 for Gemayel, 36,172 for Khoury. Interestingly, tayyar.org is still at 281 boxes, giving the lead to their candidate with 33,963 votes (did anyone notice how the numbers miraculously changed to give Khoury the lead after Aoun declared victory?).
Update 5. Mustapha saw it two. Did Tayyar.org doctor the results after their leader's announcement?
Update 6. According to Gabriel Murr, the pro-Michel Murr Tashnag party rigged the vote as "they always do". Gabriel Murr, who won the 2002 by-elections by a small margin (before the constitutional council annulled the result), pointed out that if Aoun won, he didn't win the Maronite vote, but the Armenian vote, which was included in the Metn district to manipulate the results.
Update 7. Walid Jumblatt: "The so called Michel Aoun lost by only winning by a small margin, and counting on naturalized Syrians and [non-Maronite] vote." Jumblatt described this as a "political victory" for March 14 and Gemayel.
Update 8. Amin Gemayel said there are no official results yet. He accused the Armenian Tashnag party of rigging the vote in Bourj Hamoud. He said his campaign discovered that deceased and expats miraculously voted in the Tashnag's area of influence. He also cited an incident where a citizen went to vote and found that someone had already voted for him. Gemayel called on his supporters to wait "calmly" for the official results.
Update 9. Al-Mustaqbal reported in its Monday edition that Aoun's candidate won by 418 more votes than Amin Gemayel. The latter won two thirds of the Maronite vote, according to the pro-Hariri daily. The seat, however, goes to Aoun's candidate. March 14 is spinning this as an end to the Christian cover. This may be true, but Aoun had long given up on winning anything by solely depending on the Christian vote. So March 14 may have miscalculated this one. The electoral law should have been changed first. You just can't keep wishing for magic to come out of a broken wand.
It was pretty depressing to watch the "exit interviews" with some of the voters. The few thousand Shias in the Metn almost all voted for Khoury. Reason given by some? "That's what Sayed Hassan told us to do," said one woman. "We owe Aoun for standing by us," said another Shia. The Hariri supporters gave similar responses. "We voted as Sheikh Saad instructed us," said one old man.
There may have been cheating in this election, but the end result speaks louder than the details. The Syrian camp won a seat from March 14, through assassination and good old gerrymandering.
Update 10. Official results: Camille Khoury won by 39,534 votes. Amin Gemayel got 39,116. Voter turnout in Metn: 46.5%.
