Pro-Western majority defeats Hezbollah in Lebanon

Official results for yesterday's election were not expected until later today, but the winners were already celebrating by shooting in the air, setting off fireworks, and driving around in honking motorcades.

The election was an early test of President Obama's efforts to forge Middle East peace. A win by Hezbollah would have boosted the influence of its backers Iran and Syria and risked pushing one of the region's most volatile nations into international isolation and possibly into more conflict with Israel.

"I present this victory to Lebanon," Prime Minister Fuad Saniora said on television after stations projected his pro-Western coalition was winning. "It is an exceptional day for democracy in Lebanon."

OTV, the television station of one of Hezbollah's key Christian allies, former army chief Michel Aoun, conceded that the party's candidates who challenged pro-Western competitors in several Christian districts had been defeated, preventing a victory for the Hezbollah coalition. But Aoun was able to hang on to his representation in other districts.

Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, a leading private Christian TV station, projected the pro-Western coalition to win 68 seats in the next parliament, with 57 for Hezbollah and its allies, and three for independents.

That would almost replicate the deadlock that existed in the outgoing parliament, in which the pro-Western bloc had 70 seats and an alliance of Hezbollah and other Shiite and Christian factions had 58.

The leader of the largest bloc in the pro-Western coalition, Saad Hariri, said early today in a televised speech that he extends his hand to the losing side "to work together and seriously for the sake of Lebanon." He urged supporters to celebrate without provoking opponents.

But despite the conciliatory tone, Lebanon was at risk of sliding again into a political crisis over formation of the next government similar to the one that buffeted the country for most of the last four years.

Hezbollah had veto power in Saniora's Cabinet for the last year, which it won after provoking the worst street clashes since the 1975-1990 civil war. The pro-Western coalition had vowed not to give Hezbollah and its allies a blocking minority in the new government if they won.

The battle in Christian districts was the decisive factor. Lebanese generally vote along sectarian and family loyalties, with seats for Sunnis and Shiites in the half-Christian, half-Muslim, 128-member parliament already locked up even before the voting started.

Christians in the pro-Western coalition warned that Hezbollah would bring the influence of Shiite Iran to Lebanon. The Maronite Catholic Church made a last-minute appeal, warning that Lebanon as a state and its Arab identity were threatened, a clear reference to Hezbollah and its Persian backer, Iran.

Sunnis were also driven to vote for the pro-Western coalition to get back at Shiite Hezbollah gunmen for seizing the streets a year ago in Beirut from pro-government supporters.

Some 3.2 million out of a population of 4 million were eligible to vote, and the interior minister said turnout was about 52.3 percent, an increase over the 2005 figure of 45.8 percent.

The race for the parliament is the first major event in the Middle East since Obama reached out to the Arab and Islamic worlds last week in his speech in Cairo in which he called for a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims." Obama challenged Muslims to confront violent extremism across the globe and urged Israel and the Palestinians along with Arab states to find common ground on which to forge peace.

Hezbollah, which the United States considers a terrorist organization, has been one of the staunchest opponents of US policy in the Middle East and a sworn enemy of Israel. It fought the Jewish state in southern Lebanon in 2006 in a devastating war and has tried to smuggle weapons to the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza through Egypt.

Obama's speech did not resonate in the election campaign. But warnings by the United States that it could reconsider aid depending on the election's outcome have sparked Hezbollah accusations of US interference. The United States has given about $1 billion to Lebanon's pro-Western government since 2006.