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Christian Aoun wins key Lebanese poll

A supporter of Lebanese Christian leader Michel Aoun, wearing the orange of Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, casts her ballot in Baabda, a suburb of Beirut, on Sunday, in the third stage of the staggered parliamentary elections. PHOTO: AP

Firebrand former Christian exile Michel Aoun scored a surprise victory in the third round of Lebanon's elections, dealing a major blow to the opposition alliance which led the campaign to drive out Syrian troops.

Aoun's unlikely alliance with longtime Syrian allies swept the board in constituencies reserved for Christians in Mount Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, according to preliminary results from Sunday's vote.

Sunday's vote, the most hotly contested so far of the four-round elections, was the first since Syrian forces left in April after a 29-year military presence in the turmoil that followed the February killing of former primer Rafiq Hariri.

"I acknowledge that he won," said Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a key figure in the anti-Syrian opposition who was himself re-elected unopposed in his fiefdom in the Shouf mountains southeast of Beirut.

"The Christian extremists have vanquished the moderates," he said, accusing Aoun of serving Syrian interests.

Aoun, an outspoken ex-general who headed a military government in the last days of the 1975 to 1990 civil war and was later kicked out by Syria, retorted yesterday that Jumblatt was "a dangerous man. He doesn't believe in democracy."

"The Christian extremists have vanquished the moderates."

Walid Jumblatt, Druze leader

Officials results expected late yesterday or today will give a clearer picture of the future shape of parliament with just 28 of the 128 seats up still up for grabs in the final round next Sunday.

The fierce battle between Aoun's Free Patriotic Current and the opposition alliance for the Christian vote prompted record turnout in those constituencies, with participation at 62 percent in the district where Aoun stood.

Local media underscored the significance of Aoun's victory.

"Aoun brings Christians into the political game, all four confessions are now represented," wrote the left-wing daily As-Safir, in reference to Lebanon's Druze, Shiite, Sunni -- all Muslim -- and Christian communities.

"In light of the results so far announced, one can say that ... Christians have at long last a leader," it said.

But the anti-Syrian An-Nahar newspaper warned: "Now Lebanon has two choices: reconciliation or extremism."

Aoun, 70, who ruffled feathers as soon as he returned to Lebanon last month after the departure of the Syrians, has insisted he was running on a non-sectarian, anti-corruption and national platform.

"Michel Aoun is not seeking to become the leader of the Christians but to have a national standing," his spokesman Elias Zoghbi said.

Sunday's setback for the opposition was a far cry from the first round in Beirut two weeks ago when a coalition headed by Hariri's son and anointed heir Saad Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, swept every seat.

Aoun did not even contest the Beirut seats in the face of the alliance between Hariri, Jumblatt and the Lebanese Forces of jailed warlord Samir Geagea, a Christian.

In the Bekaa, the Shiite coalition of Hezbollah and Amal that swept last weekend's poll in the south, is tipped to win in two districts, while Jumblatt conceded that Aoun's list had won the town of Zahle.

"I hope we don't lose the north too," Jumblatt said, referring to the final round of the elections next weekend which will determine whether the opposition alliance can realize its ambition to dominate the new legislature.
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