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S.
Lebanon Vote Seen Triumph for Resistance
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Many Lebanese said Sunday that their voters were meant to protect the resistance weapons.
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BEIRUT,
June 6, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Hezbollah and
Amal movement have secured a clean sweep in the second round of
parliamentary elections, a big win described by politicians and
newspapers as a carte blanche for Hezbollah to retain its resistance
arms against Israel.
“The
south...one voice to protect the resistance and its weapons,” read
the front-page headline of As-Safir newspaper said Monday, June
6, Reuters reported.
“In
the most difficult climate amid pressure on Lebanon to hit at its
resistance, the south... provided a popular and political umbrella to
preserve the resistance and its arms.”
The
Al-Liwaa newspaper also noted that “the electoral machines of
Hezbollah and Amal succeeded in turning the elections into a
referendum for national choices, mainly the protection of the
resistance.”
Analysts
said that Hezbollah’s big win at the ballot box appeared certain to
bolster the group's determination to keep its weapons as a defense
against Israel and in the face US-led pressures to disarm.
“The
aim is to defend Lebanon, not the weapons of the resistance. But to
defend Lebanon we must defend the weapons,” Sheikh Naeem Kassem,
deputy head of Hezbollah, said Sunday, June 5.
“Today,
southerners said this and the international community must listen.”
Many
Lebanese said Sunday that their voters were meant to protect
the resistance against foreign pressures.
US-sponsored
UN resolution 1559 calls for the disarmament of all militias in the
country, a term Hezbollah maintains does not apply on resistance.
The
group has vowed to fight back any attempt to forcibly take away its
weapons as long as Israel continues to occupy the Lebanese Shebaa
Farms border district and pose a threat to Lebanon's security.
Landslide
Victory
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“This is not a steamroller victory... this is a victory that is like the waves of the sea,” said Berri.
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The
“Resistance, Liberation and Development” coalition of Hezbollah
and Amal won all 23 seats up for grabs in the south, according to
official results announced by Interior Minister Hassan Al-Sabaa
Monday.
The
Interior Ministry has said turnout among the 675,000 eligible voters
was 45 percent, compared to only 23 percent in the first phase in the
capital Beirut.
Thousands
of supporters waving yellow Hezbollah and green Amal flags drove
through villages and towns, honking their horns.
Fireworks
exploded above central Beirut as the celebrations spilled over to the
capital on Sunday night.
Speaker
of parliament and Amal's leader Nabih Berri on Sunday thanked the
people of southern Lebanon "for their confidence in the coalition
and for its continued victory, with all its candidates.”
“This
is not a steamroller victory... this is a victory that is like the
waves of the sea, it cannot subside before fulfilling its demands and
objectives in ending deprivation and deterring aggression,” he said.
An
Amal-Hizbullah alliance won a landslide in the south in the last
general election in 2000, only months after Hizbullah's heroic
resistance operations forced Israel to withdraw from south Lebanon in
2000 after 22 years of occupation.
Hizbullah
has 12 members in the present 128-seat assembly.
The
first stage of the legislative polls was won by a coalition championed
by Saad Hariri, the son of slain former premier Rafiq Hariri whose
assassination in a February bomb blast unleashed a massive political
upheaval in Lebanon and is a major factor in the elections.
Central
and eastern Lebanon will vote next Sunday in what promises to be the
most heated round of polling.
Lebanon
has some three million eligible voters, 59 percent Muslim and 41
percent Christian, who will be contesting 128 parliamentary seats to
be shared equally by the Christian and Muslim communities.
The
elections follow two political earthquakes in Lebanon - Hariri's
assassination and the withdrawal of Syrian troops after 29-year
presence.
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