LEBANON: As voters go to polls, many fears and a few hopes

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Across the tiny Mediterranean country of Lebanon, voters head to the polls Sunday in an election that will have major ramifications across the region. Will Iran and its Hezbollah allies in the March 8 alliance win? Will the U.S. and its March 14 coalition allies retain control of parliament and government?

Among voters the rifts are stark.

“If March 8 wins, it means problems,” said Sobhi Zaghal, a 65-year-old Sunni cafe owner who supports parliamentary leader Saad Hariri’s Future Movement.

“March 8 is with Iran,’ he continued. ‘Iran means problems -- economic problems, political problems. Iran is in Iraq, Lebanon will become like Iraq. How could anyone want that?”

On the other side of the Sunni-Shiite sectarian divide that afflicts much of the Middle East, Hussein Fawaz had a very different view.

“The current government are traitors and cooperated with Israel and the U.S.,” said the Shiite Muslim, a staunch Hezbollah supporter.

“March 14 dealt with the Israelis against the nation,” he alleged.

To Fawaz, a Hezbollah win would mean Shiites as well as Druze, Christians, Armenians and Sunnis in one proud new government. “We need a Hezbollah government because there’s occupied land in the south, and Hezbollah is the only one capable of liberating it,” he said, in reference to a disputed area called Shabaa Farms, which the United Nations considers part of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights but which Lebanese consider part of their country.

The reemergence of Christian leader Michel Aoun as a major figure in Lebanese politics is another point of division in the elections. Whereas March 8 supporters such as Fawaz consider Aoun’s ascent ‘the biggest victory for the Lebanese nation,’ others take a far more negative view of him.

‘We see the slogan ‘reform,’ but we’ll see nothing and see him as a demagogue in a weaker state and a stronger Hezbollah,’ said Nada Yassmine, a 22-year-old Orthodox Christian voter. ‘Hezbollah prokoved the July war. In my point of view, Aoun is the one dividing the Christians.’

Many people vowed to stay home on election day, sickened by the perceived sectarianism and corruption of their political class. Others said they would vote, but didn’t think it would make too much of a difference.

Hani, a 34-year-old Sunni publisher who declined to give his last name, complained that Hezbollah’s arms make the Shiite militant movement unfair competition, since it already secured the right to block major government moves after clashes that erupted in 2008 and led to a deal in which Hezbollah got to keep its weapons.

‘If [Hezbollah] wins, it will be the same, but without any hindrance,’ he said. ‘But even if March 14 wins there’s the matter of the blocking third and then we still have to form the government and there will be another fight.’

Druze lawyer Wasim Maadad, 28, said a Hezbollah win might change the character of the country. A March 8 wins ‘means victory of the resistance and the way of life of the resistance,’ he said, in reference to the hard-core, militant ideology that governs Hezbollah.

Still among some voters, bread-and-butter issues play a stronger role than ideology or religious loyalties. They want to see change. ‘Hariri’s government has been around for 15 years,’ said Nassar Yatim, a 45-year-old Shiite. ‘What has happened? Nothing!’

Schoolteacher Leila Shalah said that she had received one raise, amounting to $16 a week, in the last 17 years and was sickened by the corruption she saw around her.

“Even the police won’t help you unless you pay them,” she said. “I want a state. Everywhere in the world you pay taxes and get something in return, what are we getting?”

-- Jahd Khalil and Meris Lutz in Beirut and Borzou Daragahi in Tehran

Photos, from top: Supporters of Lebanese Christian opposition and pro-Hezbollah leader Michel Aoun show off campaign slogans on their T-shirts during a rally in Beirut. ‘I am beautiful,’ the T-shirt on the left says, ‘and I vote orange,’ the color of Aoun’s political party, the other declares. Credit: Patrick Baz / AFP/Getty Images.

Photo: Lebanese parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri waves to supporters during a rally in Beirut. Credit: Bilal Hussein / Associated Press