A photo taken on June 4, 2009 shows campaign posts of Issam Abu Jamra, Lebanon's deputy prime minister and parliamentary candidate, outside Jamra's campaign office in Beirut, capital of Lebanon. The upcoming parliamentary election will be held on Sunday.
BEIRUT, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese most significant, tense and decisive parliamentary elections which will take place on Sunday seem to be a tight contest between the ruling majority and the opposition. While each side claims it will win the ruling majority, a slight swing could be in favor of the opposite side, Lebanese statistic expert Kamal Fegali told Xinhua.
BOTH GROUPS CONFIDENT OF WINNING THE ELECTION
Leaders of rival Lebanese groups, the ruling coalition and the opposition, in an attempt to boost the moral of their supporters, or, out of confidence, claim they will win the parliamentary elections on Sunday, Fegali said.
Meanwhile, majority leader MP Saad Hariri has been announcing during his election campaigns this week that his ruling majority will win the elections, while Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah said that the outcomes of the elections will be surprisingly in favor of the opposition which will form the next national government.
The majority of Sunni and Druze along with some Christians in the present ruling coalition are facing the opposition led by the Lebanese Shiite armed group Hezbollah and its Shiite ally Amal Movement of parliament speaker Nabih Berri, along with Christian leader MP Michel Aoun who currently has the majority of Christian seats in parliament.
Candidates from both competing sides have exchanged fierce accusations during their campaigns, charging each others with treason and loyalty to foreign countries in order to gain more votes in a sharply fragmented society.
OPPOSITION HAS BETTER CHANCE TO WIN
Several local annalists and their statistics predict a small swing in favor of the opposition, but there is no reliable opinion poll which can be adopted as a reference to anticipate the winner.
Kamal Fegali, head of the Statistic and Documentation Center, told Xinhua that the opinion poll he repeated every week in the past five months show that "the opposition could get at least 67 seats out of the 128 parliamentary seats, showing a slight victory of three seats over the ruling majority."
However, Rabie al-Haber, director of Statistic Lebanon Institute, told New TV that his opinion poll showed equal seats of 64 for each side, stressing that any change would depend on the election outcomes of the predominant Christian town of Zahle in the Bekaa region where the competition is at peak between two strong lists.
Meanwhile, most of the results of major election constituencies in the Shiite, Sunni and Druze regions of north, south and mountainous regions respectively are almost clear, while tense competition remains mostly in Christian areas.
ELECTIONS HAVE REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL IMPACTS
Many local reports say that the Hezbollah-led opposition backed by Syria and Iran has a good chance to win by a narrow margin over their U.S.-Western-Saudi-Egyptian backed ruling majority rivals.
The June 7 parliamentary elections are considered as highly important due to its impact on the future of Lebanon and the whole region as well as on the international policy in the region.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said a week prior to the Lebanese elections that the outcomes of the Lebanese elections will change "the features of the region," hinting to a stronger Syrian-Iranian influence over Saudi-Egyptian influence. His comment was well invested by the majority candidates warning against "Persian control over Lebanon."
Syria and Egypt however have refrained from publicly making their influences in Lebanese elections despite their deep concern regarding the outcomes of their influences.
Meanwhile, France prefers to seeing the ruling majority win the June 7 elections, but it would deal normally with Hezbollah as it does with any Lebanese party if the opposition wins the election, a French diplomatic source told local al-Akhbar daily Tuesday, adding that if the current majority wins, the "Hamas experience" wouldn't be repeated in Lebanon as some thinks, the source added.
However, the U.S. which is keen not to be seen as meddling in domestic Lebanese politics, dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to Beirut less than two weeks before the elections on a one day visit which was interpreted as a support to the ruling majority.
Biden made it clear that the U.S. aid to Lebanon depended on the outcomes of the elections.
"We will evaluate and shape our assistance program based on the nature and composition of the future government and the politics it advocates," Biden said in Beirut, but he stressed as well that the U.S. will respect the choice of the Lebanese in their elections.
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