TYRE, Lebanon - The pro-Syria coalition of the Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah was heading Sunday for a sweeping victory in round two of Lebanon's first elections to be held since Damascus withdrew its troops from the country.

The "Resistance, Liberation and Development" coalition of Hezbollah and Shiite movement Amal was expected to steamroll the opposition in the south, with a pledge to keep on with the armed resistance against Israel.

The pro-Syrian groups which fought a guerrilla war against a 22-year Israeli occupation, expect to maintain their grip on the south, a volatile region still intermittently rocked by border clashes with Israel.

"Preliminary results showed that the coalition has won all the seats, with a large margin," Amal candidate MP Ali Khreis told AFP. But Hezbollah officials did not wish to claim victory for all 23 seats as yet.

A senior Lebanese official source told AFP that turnout for the two constituencies in southern Lebanon stood at around 45 percent, according to preliminary official estimates after the close of polling stations.

He said vote counting was expected to continue during the night, with official results to be announced on Monday.

Confident with victory, the coalition has encouraged a high turnout to show popular backing for Hezbollah to maintain its arms despite a UN Security Council resolution which called for the disarming of all militias in Lebanon.

"This is a referendum by the people to tell the Americans that we want to protect the (armed) resistance," said Sheikh Nabil Qaooq, senior Hezbollah official for southern Lebanon, which still bears the scars of Israel's occupation which ended five years ago.

Hezbollah, the only armed group not required to lay down its arms after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war because it was spearheading the resistance, has vowed to continue to fight for the disputed Shebaa Farms border district.

The United States maintains Hezbollah on its terror list.

On central squares in main southern cities, Hezbollah supporters erected effigies of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, with prescription glasses printed with the Star of David and with a ballot box.

Hezbollah officials have repeatedly accused the administration of President George W. Bush of interference in Lebanese internal affairs, including the electoral process.

"Vote no for Bush, vote yes for (Hezbollah chief) Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah," said a sticker showing the Shiite group's leader holding a kalashnikov rifle on a ballot box.

With the two groups also likely to secure other seats in other regions in Lebanon's four-round vote, Amal and Hezbollah are expected to maintain a total of 17 and 12 MPs respectively in the 128-member parliament.

Sunday's vote is the second round of a four-phase election being held barely a month after the last Syrian soldier left Lebanese soil after a 29-year military presence.

The first stage last Sunday was won by anti-Syrian groups headed by Saad Hariri, the son of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri whose assassination in a February bomb blast unleashed a massive political upheaval in Lebanon.

Sunday's vote comes just days after the killing of a prominent anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir, which like the murder of Hariri is blamed by many on Beirut's pro-Syrian leaders and their political masters in Damascus.

Christian and Sunni Muslim political and religious leaders have called for a boycott of the south Lebanon polls because the Syrian-inspired 2000 electoral law drowned the votes of Christian and Sunni minorities in the sea of Shiite votes.

Christians constitute 18.3 percent of the southern population, while Muslims -- mostly Shiites -- are 81.7 percent.

Turnout was greater in Shiite regions than in Christian and Sunni regions.

It was particularly low in Christian areas in the border stretch once occupied by Israel, and largely deserted by its residents who fled to Israel and other destinations after the Jewish state's pullout.

In one polling station in Ain Ebel, only three out of 420 registered voters had cast their ballots while in Rmeish, just three out of 330 had decided to participate just before midday.

Of the 23 seats up for grabs, six candidates from the Hezbollah-sponsored list have already been elected by default, including Bahia Hariri, sister of Rafiq Hariri.

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