The second to last round of Lebanon’s parliamentary elections proved out the old adage that politics makes strange bedfellows.

Michel Aoun, a former Prime Minister, former head of Lebanon’s armed forces, and until recently an exile with an arrest warrant out for him, swept to victory in Mount Lebanon and the Bekaa districts completing a political comeback tinged with irony. The candidate lists headed up by Aoun featured largely pro-Syrian parties. Aoun, a Maronite Christian, made his political bones fighting Syrian forces in 1990 in an aborted attempt to hang on to the post of Prime Minister in the face of Syrian interference.

Aoun’s lists were also victorious in the largely Christian enclaves of Kesrouan-Jbeil and Metn and Zahle. Aoun may well have beaten rival Maronite and key opposition figures, Nassib Lahoud and Fares Soueid.

As it stands now, anti-Syrian opposition candidates have won nearly 50% of seats in the 128 seat Lebanese parliament. Aoun is positioning himself quite nicely to be a major player when the parties meet after the elections and get to the business of forming a government. While its unlikely Aoun himself could capture the Presidency (the post under current election law reserved for Christians) it’s almost certain that an ally of his will be named.

Aoun was forced to align himself with pro-Syrian elements when negotiations prior to the elections with members of the Qornet Shehwan Gathering failed to bring him any alliances with the opposition. Today, former Druze warlord and opposition leader Walid Jumblatt called Aoun a “small Syrian tool.” That may be too harsh as Aoun is certainly as anti-Syrian a candidate as they come. More than his alliance with any pro-Syrian candidates however, Aoun’s stand against political corruption is what apparently attracted the most support for his lists.

Meanwhile, more headaches for the United States and the international community as the Hizbullah electoral list took the majority of votes in Baalbek-Hermel, which saw a total voter turnout of 50 percent. Three electoral lists competed in the Bekaa first district with a sweeping victory for Hizbullah and its allies, including the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the Baath Party, the Amal movement and the Phalange Party.

This result virtually guarantees that Hizbullah will improve on its current 12 seat representation in parliament. It also guarantees that the most difficult and immediate issue that will face the new government will be either the disbanding of Hizbullah’s armed militias or their integration into the Lebanese armed forces. Either course of action will have Israel watching very closely. The militias are armed to the teeth and have sworn death to Israel. Their continued independence would be a signal to the Jewish state that Lebanon will remain a threat and make any peace negotiations problematic. Israel still holds territory claimed by Lebanon and negotiations to return it would be difficult with Hizbullah’s 12,000 rockets aimed at settlements along the border.

The final round of voting takes place next Sunday. Then the difficult work of forming a government will start. While it’s clear that the opposition candidates will probably be in the drivers seat, in order to form a stable government some cabinet posts will have to go to pro-Syrian sympathizers. And in addition to the issue of Hizbullah militas, one of the first orders of business for the new government will be to come up with a new election law, one that will hopefully based on proportional representation in larger districts. The current set-up allows for too many smaller parties to have a disproportionate impact in elections.

Further Reading:

Daily Star. Also here, and here. And Washington Post article here.

Here’s a short bio of Michel Aoun.