Anatomy of A By-Election

It didn't quite seem like anyone could make up their mind whether they wanted the by-election in Metn to take place. Well, except for the Patriarch, of course -- he was against it from the beginning. But the prospect of a compromise candidate was the rumor that just would not die. If Aoun or Gemayel had been firm that the election was taking place, the rumor would have dissolved. But they weren't, and that hints that neither side is quite sure how election day is going to play out. Personally, I'm with Mustapha -- let them vote. The candidates don' get to decide whether the citizens of Metn will have the privilege of voting in their representatives.

Now that, mercifully, the last attempts at compromise appear to have failed, we can talk about the effects of the by-election. And, after all this commotion, there still remains the possibility that the effects of the Metn by-election on Lebanon's larger political divisions will be precisely zero. One Parliamentary seat changing hands is not going to destroy March 14th's majority. Aoun's list swept the Metn by a sizable margin, beating Pierre Gemayel by tens of thousands of votes. If Metnis go to the polls on August 5th and elect the FPM's Camille Khoury by a substantial but still smaller margin than Aoun won in 2005, everyone may declare victory and go home. March 14th will take heart that they cut into Aoun's Christian support; March 8th will be happy to defeat a former President running for his murdered son's seat.

If the Metn by-elections are going to have any effect, one party is going to have to win by a large enough margin so that the defeated candidate cannot spin the loss as a victory. That probably means a solid victory by Gemayel -- by around 5 to 10%, say -- or a large victory by Aoun, showing he has maintained most of his Christian support from 2005. At those levels, the Metn by-elections could scuttle Gemayel or Aoun's presidential campaigns, or cause one of the Christian leaders to reconsider how their alliances in the broader Lebanese political scene are effecting their level of support.

One thing is for sure: the battle over the election's "goalposts" will be as hard fought as the election itself. Like everything in politics, the next fight is always just around the corner.