Hezbollah allies gain in Lebanon vote in apparent boost for Iran

BEIRUT (Reuters): Hezbollah and its political allies won just over half the seats in Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, unofficial results showed, boosting an Iranian-backed movement fiercely opposed to Israel and underlining Tehran’s growing regional influence.

If confirmed, the preliminary results cited by politicians and media might also add to the risks facing Lebanon, reliant on US military help and hoping to secure billions of dollars in international aid and loans to revive its stagnant economy.

Branded a terrorist group by the United States, Hezbollah has grown in strength since joining the war in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad in 2012. Its powerful position in Lebanon reflects Tehran’s ascendancy in territory stretching through Iraq and Syria to Beirut.

The unofficial tally in the first parliamentary elections in nine years indicated sharp losses for Western-backed Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. But he was still set to emerge as the Sunni Muslim leader with the biggest bloc in the 128-seat house, making him the frontrunner to form the next government.

Lebanon’s prime minister must be a Sunni in the country’s sectarian power-sharing system. The new government, like the outgoing one, is expected to include all the main parties. Talks over Cabinet posts are expected to take time.

International donors want to see Beirut embark on serious economic reforms to reduce state debt levels before they will release billions pledged at a Paris conference in April.

Lebanon has been a big recipient of foreign aid to help it cope with hosting one million refugees who fled the war in neighbouring Syria, equal to one-in-four of the population.

The election was held under a complex new law that redrew constituency boundaries and changed the electoral system from winner-takes-all to a proportional one. The interior minister said official results would be declared on Monday.

An Israeli security cabinet minister said the gains in the vote showed that Israel should not distinguish between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah in any future war.

The staunchly anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Forces, a Christian party, appears to have emerged as a big winner, nearly doubling its MPs to 15 from eight, according to the initial indications. Hezbollah, along with allied groups and individuals, secured at least 67 seats, according to a Reuters calculation based on preliminary results for nearly all the seats obtained from politicians and campaigns and reported in Lebanese media.

Hezbollah’s allies include the Shi’ite Amal Movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and the Christian Free Patriotic Movement established by President Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally since 2006 who has said its arsenal is needed to defend Lebanon.

Hezbollah-backed Sunnis did well in Beirut, Tripoli and Sidon, strongholds of Hariri’s Future Movement, the preliminary results showed. The pro-Hezbollah al-Akhbar newspaper declared the election “the slap” for Hariri on its front page.

Hezbollah-backed winners include Jamil al-Sayyed, a retired Shi’ite general and former Lebanese intelligence chief who is a close friend of Assad.

Sayyed was one of the most powerful men in Lebanon in the 15 years of Syrian domination that followed the 1975-90 civil war.

At least five other figures who held office during that era returned to parliament for the first time since Syrian forces withdrew from Lebanon after the assassination of Rafik al-Hariri, Saad’s father, in 2005.

Turnout was 49.2%, down from 54% the last time legislative elections were held nine years ago.

Lebanon should have held a parliamentary election in 2013 but MPs instead voted to extend their own term because leaders could not agree on a new parliamentary election law.