Nayla Assaf
Daily Star staff

About 5,000 people gathered at Murr Television headquarters in Naccashe on Tuesday to celebrate Gabriel Murr’s apparent election victory.
Supporters gathered to hear Interior Minister Elias Murr announce the results, with many shouting: “say it, say it, say it,” angry at the minister’s lengthy remarks.
“Why does he keep repeating the word ‘conscience’?” said one attendee, drawing laughter and boos from the crowd. The minister used the word about 20 times during his news conference, to justify the painstakingly long announcement process.
The jubilant crowd swelled in number as the evening progressed, with cars pouring in sporting with posters of the former army commander, General Michel Aoun.
Gabriel Murr made a brief appearance and was given a hero’s greeting. Seizing a loudspeaker, one enthusiastic supporter summoned the crowd to march to Bteghrin, the hometown of the Murr family, forcing the victor of the heated Metn by-election to counsel discretion.
“I beg you not to go to Bteghrin. We don’t want violence and we want our victory to be a civilized one,” he said.
Later in the evening, Gabriel Murr made another appearance.
“The elections have shown that Metn residents are not afraid, whether they have voted behind or in front of screens,” he said in reference to a controversial decision by the interior minister that voting behind screens was not compulsory. “Some people are not only interested in small services, or in having their roads paved, because this is the duty of the government anyway. People have decided to say no to the irregularities which have been prevailing for 10 years.”
He also called for his supporters to stay calm and out of trouble and away from Myrna Murr’s campaign headquarters in Amarat Shalhoub.
Former Communist Party leader George Hawi, in a total shift from his traditional stance, called for the return of the exiled Aoun and for the release from prison of former Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and his adviser, Tawfiq Hindi. Hawi, who had aligned himself with the coalition backing Gabriel Murr, also addressed the crowd.
“They are making young people emigrate, but they will not emigrate,” he said. “If (politicians) are not satisfied with the situation then let them emigrate, because we have no other country to go to.”
Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) student coordinator Antoine Khoury Harb said that “since Sunday night, they (Elias Murr and candidate Myrna Murr’s electoral machine) have been trying to fabricate a victory. But people’s reaction and the way society treated the event exceeded their expectations, leaving them no other way out.”
Harb said that the by-election was an introduction to the FPM’s comeback, adding: “This is the first step in the battle for the 2005 parliamentary battle.”
In a telephone interview while on his way to Naccashe, the head of the National Liberal Party, Dory Chamoun, urged Justice Minister Samir Jisr to determine weather the responsibility for the mistaken preliminary results lay on the judges who signed the Higher Tabulation Committee’s official report, as Elias Murr hinted while announcing the results.
“I call on the justice minister to inquire whether the judges violated the law, because it is unacceptable that the interior minister lay the responsibility on someone else to protect himself,” Chamoun said. Asked whether the coalition would continue to seek Elias Murr’s resignation, Chamoun said: “He has dismissed himself.”
Denouncing the minister’s evasiveness during the news conference, which did not include an official result, Chamoun said that “he was unable to give a clear result, and kept beating around the bush and speaking about his conscience.”

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