Elie Hourani
Daily Star Staff

As the drama of the Murrs’ Metn by-elections neared a conclusion on Monday, mixed reactions arose over the electoral process and the delay in announcing an official winner for the seat left vacant by the late Albert Mokheiber.
The Maronite League called on state officials to respect the popular will shown in Sunday’s Metn by-election, where MTV owner Gabriel Murr faced his niece Myrna Murr.
The league said in a statement that its purpose in making such a call was “to safeguard the principle of safe democratic practices,” cautioning against “undermining voters’ will by changing the characteristics of the democratic system and emptying it of its basic meaning.”
The league was alarmed by the “escalation of the past few hours,” it said Monday as election officials edged toward formally announcing a winner.
President Emile Lahoud, in his capacity as guardian of the Constitution and its institutions, should “tackle this issue in a manner that safeguards the official system’s safety and takes the public’s expectations into consideration,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Phalange Party president Karim Pakradouni declined to acknowledge any wrongdoing on his party’s behalf in backing Myrna Murr.
Addressing a joint meeting of the party’s politburo and central council Monday, he stressed that the party was correct in having called on all parties to rally behind a consensus candidate to “save Metn residents and the Lebanese in general from the repercussions of such a clash.”
Deploring the use of threats and offensive language during the campaign, Pakradouni cautioned against the return of the language of violence as a result of the by-election results.
Also Monday, the Tashnak Party issued a statement commending the “quiet atmosphere which prevailed in Metn during the by-election.”
Armenian voters, it said, did their duty by taking part en masse in the election process.
In a related development, the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections condemned the “delay in announcing the official results of the by-election.” This came in a statement issued Monday by the association.
The association held an emergency meeting Monday to follow the latest developments in the by-election and to discuss “the suspicious and illegal delay in announcing the official by-election results.”
The association held “not the Interior Ministry alone but the whole government responsible for something as serious as this.”
It called on the government to take necessary measures to “save the electoral process from the threats it is facing.”

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