Lebanese election a blow to Hezbollah

The Western-backed March 14 coalition won an unexpectedly large parliamentary majority – 71 of 128 seats – over the opposition, led by the Iranian-backed militant group.

from the June 8, 2009 edition

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Crux of political schism: Hezbollah's weapons

Once the prime minister has been selected, formal consultations begin on the composition of the next government. However, initial contacts between the rival camps were expected to begin as soon as the final election results were confirmed Monday afternoon.

Hezbollah's priority in the coming negotiations is to ensure that a future government will not represent a threat to its formidable military wing.

"The majority [March 14] must commit not to question our role as a resistance party, the legitimacy of our weapons arsenal, and the fact that Israel is an enemy state," Mohammed Raad, a Hezbollah member of parliament, told Agence France-Presse Monday. "The results indicate that the crisis will continue, unless the majority changes its attitude."

Hezbollah insists that its weapons are necessary to deter future Israeli aggression, but its opponents argue that only the Lebanese Army has the right to bear arms and only the state can decide on matters of war and peace.

When the government attempted to shut down Hezbollah's private military communications network in May 2008, it triggered the worst bout of internal violence since the end of the 1975-90 civil war. The fighting ended with an agreement brokered in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which led to the formation of a new government of national unity in which the opposition held a veto-wielding one-third share. The veto power allowed the opposition to block legislation with which they disagreed, such as further attempts to disarm Hezbollah.

The March 14 coalition reluctantly accepted the arrangement, but argued that the veto power stifled government activity. Still, the Doha agreement bought a year of calm in Lebanon during the run-up to Sunday's election.

Emboldened March 14 coalition likely to pressure Hezbollah

The March 14 bloc says that while it favors a new national unity government with opposition participation, it will not repeat the offer of a veto.

"Clearly, the majority does not want to repeat the paralysis of the past year," says a senior March 14 source who spoke on condition of anonymity. The source says he doubted that Hezbollah would provoke a crisis over the one-third veto share, asking, "what is their justification?"

But some analysts believe that a new crisis is in the making with an emboldened March 14, encouraged by the US and by the scale of its electoral victory, to pursue Hezbollah's disarming.

"This result will be seen as a victory for the US and Israel. There will be more pressure on Hezbollah to disarm than before," says Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an expert on Hezbollah.

She added that Hezbollah would consider it "imperative" that it retain the veto power in the next government.

"The outcome of the election is entirely to the benefit of the US and Hezbollah will want to mitigate that by ensuring it has the one-third veto," Ms. Saad-Ghorayeb says.

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