Lebanon Votes To Replace Assassinated Pols

Tens of thousands of Lebanese voted Sunday to replace two assassinated lawmakers in a tense election that has become a major showdown between the U.S.-backed government and its opponents.

The election's results could determine the political future of this deeply divided country, weeks ahead of a scheduled vote by parliament to elect a new president.

Sunday's vote was largely peaceful. It took place amid tight security in two electoral districts, one in Beirut and the other in Lebanon's Metn region, a Christian stronghold where the community is deeply divided.

Voters picked candidates to replace legislator and cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel, a Christian who was shot dead in November, and lawmaker Walid Eido, a Sunni Muslim who was killed in a Beirut car bomb in June. Both were allies of the U.S.-backed Lebanese government and vocal opponents of neighboring Syria, which controlled Lebanon for 29 years until it was forced out in 2005.

In Beirut, the vote for Eido's seat was expected to be easily won by Mohammed al-Amin Itani, a candidate of parliament majority leader Saad Hariri's Future Movement, particularly since the Hezbollah-led opposition did not officially sponsor a candidate.

But in Metn, the vote for Gemayel's seat is a bitter contest between two candidates including the assassinated politician's father, Amin Gemayel, who was president of Lebanon for much of the 1980s.

Gemayel has decided to compete for his son's seat on behalf of the ruling coalition. He faces off against Kamil Khoury, who is supported by Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun, a former army commander and interim prime minister allied with the Hezbollah-led opposition. Aoun's party dominated the district in the 2005 legislative elections.

A local TV station called the Metn election "the mother of all battles."

"Vote for freedom and independence by voting for Gemayel in Metn and Itani in Beirut," read a banner at the entrance of Gemayel's hometown of Bikfaya. Pictures of Gemayel and his slain son were displayed on balconies, cars and electricity poles.

At many polling stations in Metn, Gemayel's supporters distributed white roses to voters before they cast their ballots in memory of the late minister.

Gemayel and his wife, Joyce, began the day by visiting their son's grave before heading to the polling station. As he later entered a school to vote, about 20 supporters of his Phalange Party chanted "Pierre lives on!"

"We visited Pierre to ... promise him that his blood will not be in vain," Gemayel told reporters.

"They have been provoking us all day," said Bahiya Mizher, a Aoun supporter wearing an orange T-shirt and cap — the color of his Free Patriotic Movement. "But God is with us and we shall win," she said.

Mizher, like many others, believes the election is about much more than just a seat. "The battle is between two diverging tracks ... what happens today will have major repercussions on the political future of the country," she said, sitting on the ground in Bikfaya outside a polling station.

While pro-government politicians accuse the opposition of being agents for Iran and Syria, Hezbollah leaders and Aoun accuse the ruling majority of subservience to the United States.

Aoun has said the Metn elections are "to liberate the country from political feudalism, sectarian intolerance and political bribery," a reference to the Gemayel family's role in Lebanese politics since the 1930s.

The rivalry between Aoun and Gemayel could further divide the Christian community and is generally seen as a battle of wills between the ruling coalition and the opposition, weeks before parliament is to elect a new president. According to the constitution, the current president must step down before Nov. 23.

As Maronite Christians, both Gemayel and Aoun are eligible to run for the position, with the latter already having declared his candidacy.

The elections could also escalate the country's deepening political crisis because Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's Western-backed government called them without the required approval of President Emile Lahoud, who has blocked attempts to replace the lawmakers. Lahoud considers Saniora's government to be illegitimate.

Lahoud is allied with the Hezbollah-led, pro-Syrian opposition, as is Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who has said he will not recognize the results of the contests.

Gemayel and the government have accused Damascus of being behind the assassination of his son and a number of other anti-Syrian politicians and public figures over the last two years, part of what they deem Syria's plan to end the majority's rule through attrition. Syria has denied the allegations.

With Eido's death, Saniora's margin in parliament has been whittled down to only four seats.

On Saturday, a senior military official reported that two Lebanese soldiers have been killed in continued fighting between the army and al Qaeda-inspired militants entrenched in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon.

The army has been advancing slowly into Nahr el-Bared camp, targeting the fortifications and tunnels used by Fatah Islam fighters, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

One soldier died Saturday and another a day earlier, the official reported, raising to 133 the number of troops killed since fighting erupted May 20.

"Every day there is progress," said the official, adding that troops were being cautious because of the presence of civilians in the area controlled by Fatah Islam. Most civilians left the camp shortly after the fighting began, but some family members of the gunmen have remained.

In an attempt to ease the army's pressure, militants have been firing Katyusha rockets at nearby villages almost daily. A Lebanese woman was wounded Saturday in such an attack, the state-run National News Agency said.

On Thursday, six rockets fired by the militants on nearby villages damaged a power plant in Deir Amar but caused no casualties. The attack halted production at the plant and increased electricity rationing, which is common in the Beirut area during the summer when air conditioner use drives up energy consumption.

The army has refused to halt its offensive until the militants completely surrender, but the gunmen have vowed to fight to the death.

The conflict in Nahr el-Bared, near the northern port city of Tripoli, is Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war. An undetermined number of militants — at least 60 — and more than 20 civilians have died in the fighting, according to Lebanese and U.N. relief officials.