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| Hariri-Jumblat Alliance
with Geagea, Solange Prompts Aoun War Declaration Electioneering for Lebanon's first free-from-Syria parliament in three decades moved to high gear Monday with a coalition of Saad Hariri, Qornet Shahwan, Hizbullah and Solange Gemayel out to grab Beirut's 19 seats and an alliance of Walid Jumblat and Samir Geagea certain to win all eight seats of the Chouf district. Gen. Aoun, feeling he was left out in the cold, promptly declared war on both Hariri and Jumblat, saying "all doors are slammed shut… and a confrontation is inevitable." He spared Qornet Shahwan and An Nahar said he would visit Geagea at his prison in the Yarze defense ministry compound soon. Media reports said Aoun planned to confront Jumblat in the Aley-Baabda district in a coalition with Talal Arslan, Dory Chamoun's National Liberal Party and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. He also reportedly plans an alliance with Suleiman Franjieh and Omar Karami in northern Lebanon. Aoun, however, has effectively admitted that his Free Patriotic Movement stood no chance of putting up a meaningful challenge in Beirut, the Chouf or South Lebanon, where the traditional standard-bearers of Lebanon's Shiite community, Hizbullah and Speaker Berri, are overwhelmingly dominant. "Ours is Rafik Hariri's list," said his son Saad in announcing the names of the 19 allies on his ticket at an election rally held at the Koreitem mansion. "We shall struggle for all his principles, objectives and values to prove that his blood has not gone to waist." In an apparent punch at Syria, which dominated Lebanon's politics for nearly three decades before completing its troop withdrawal last month, Saad rejected "the logic of tutelage from anyone or the logic of tutelage on anyone." Solange Gemayel, widow of President-elect Bashir Gemayel who was assassinated one week after his election and two weeks before his swearing-in ceremony in September of 1982, stood just below the podium from which Saad read out the names to wildly cheering crowds. Mrs. Gemayel became the third candidate in Hariri's list to be formally declared a winner unopposed for the only Maronite seat in Beirut. The other two are Ghazi Youssef, the slain premier's senior economic advisor who won a Shiite seat, and Druze Ghazi Aridi of Jumblat's Progressive Socialist Party. Prolonged applause greeted Saad's announcement of An Nahar General-Manager Gebran Tueni as the Qornet Shahwan runner for Beirut's Orthodox seat in Ashrafiyeh. Other newcomers on the list included former Justice Minister Bahij Tabbara and Bassem Al Shab for the protestant seat vacated by assassinated former economy minister Bassel Fleihan. Hizbullah's Amin Sherri, was the only absentee from the list members in the Koreitem rally. The media said he absented himself to avoid posing for photographers with Mrs. Gemayel. All four Armenian legislators who made to parliament in 2000 were retained on the 2005 list along with Ghenwa Jalloul, Walid Ido and Atef Majdalani. |
