Good News: Moderates Win Lebanese Election

TW: This is one of those stories where if the opposite result had occurred headlines would have been screaming. As it is headlines are few and far between. Lebanon held its elections over the weekend, pro-Western moderates retained power and grew their majority over Iranian backed Hezbollah factions. One election does not make a nation and Hezbollah retains much power formally and informally in Lebanon. But a democratically elected government provides a more stable base from which to initiate reforms than say the pro-Western oligarchies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia etc.

From NYT:
"An American-backed alliance has retained control of the Lebanese Parliament after a hotly contested election billed as a showdown between Tehran and Washington for influence in the Middle East.

The alliance, known as the March 14 coalition, won the majority in the 128-member parliament with 71 seats, compared with to 57 for the Hezbollah-led coalition, according to official results announced Monday by the government. The results represent a significant and unexpected defeat for Hezbollah and its allies, Iran and Syria. Most polls had showed a tight race, but one in which the Hezbollah-led group would win.

...The March 14 coalition is a predominantly Sunni, Christian and Druze alliance. It is led by the Sunni Muslim Future Movement of Saad Hariri, whose father’s assassination in 2005 led to huge protests that forced Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon.

The majority party in Parliament gets to build the next government and set the direction of national policy.

The results formally leave the number of seats held by the March 14 movement nearly unchanged, with 68 seats, plus three independents aligned with them. But the vote promises to shift the balance of power in the country by providing the March 14 movement with a moral victory over Hezbollah. It also confers on them increased legitimacy, because last time the movement won, in 2005, it did so in alliance with Hezbollah.

...Around Lebanon, the interest in the contest was so high that during the voting on Sunday, people waited up to four hours to vote, many, including the elderly and the infirm, standing in the hot sun and in packed hallways..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/world/middleeast/09lebanon.html?hp