No Victory for Hezbollah in Lebanon Elections; But No Pro-Western Win Either

There will be no Islamic Republic of Lebanon. Nor will there be a pro-Western Lebanese republic. There will, after yesterday's vote -- for the Hezbollah-Christian coalition and for the secular Sunni-Christian alliance -- be a government of "national salvation" in Beirut, run by an ex-army general-president with ever-increasing powers.

Washington would have preferred that Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated ex-prime minister, came out with a clear win. But out of the shadows will come the same crippled, un-healable Lebanon; delightful, unworkable, poor old Lebanon, corrupt, beautiful, vanity-prone, intelligent, democratic -- yes, definitely, democratic -- and absolutely outside our powers to reform.

The electoral system -- a crazed mixture of sectarianism, proportional representation and "list" fixing -- means that no one ever really "wins" elections in Lebanon, and yesterday was no different. The "anti-Syrian" parties -- the Sunnis, the Druze, half of the Christian community -- made sure that their votes prevented a Hezbollah takeover, while the huge Shia vote -- for Hezbollah and the Amal party and the Christians who follow the lead of the raving Christian ex-general Michael Aoun -- made certain there would be no clear win for America's friends in the country.

But the president, who under Lebanon's unwritten constitution must be a Christian Maronite, will be able to fashion some kind of "central bloc" by midday today -- or so all Lebanon hopes -- which will include Hezbollah, the forces of anti-Syrian Sunni Islam, the Druze and even the Christians. The latter, always their own worst enemies in Lebanon, albeit a minority, will ironically be more powerful than ever because their president is one of them.

Lebanon deployed up to 60,000 troops and armed police to control the ballot boxes and, to their considerable credit, not a single gun-battle appears to have broken out. Given the personal nature of some of the contests -- this is a highly tribal society whatever the modernity of Beirut and its suburbs -- this was quite an achievement. Driving around the capital, I found only good-natured checkpoints, handing me papers of candidates' names for whom I should vote, both Christians and Muslims, in the same list. If they wore blue hats, they were for Hariri. If they wore yellow hats -- and there were conservative Shia Muslim women without scarves -- they were for Hezbollah. If they dressed in orange, they were trying to win votes for Aoun.

The Lebanese, a very shrewd people, have been reading the foreign press and listening to the BBC, Al-Jazeera, even Fox News. They knew that for foreigners -- the ajnabi -- there was only one story: Lebanon becomes a finger of Iran or Syria -- or it remains in America's hands. More dangerously, the Israelis would be able to claim it was a "terrorist" state if Hezbollah won. But then the Israelis would claim it was a "terrorist" state if even one minister was a member of Hezbollah. They will have their way.

By last night, it looked as if the spread of parties would win a share of the vote equal to their numbers; that the Shia Muslims would have the largest group of MPs but without a majority, thus allowing Lebanon's power-sharing system to settle back into its old ways. Why should we worry? Yes, it is corrupt. Tens of thousands of Lebanese flew home to vote -- you can't vote abroad in Lebanese elections -- so who paid their fare? Who has $30m to spend on air fares?

To be a modern state, Lebanon must de-confessionalize. Its president -- currently the ex-general Michel Sleiman -- should be elected on merit rather than religion. Its prime minister, who must be a Sunni Muslim, should be elected on merit. But the moment you take away these privileges, Lebanon will cease to be Lebanon -- because its very identity is sectarian.