The “Resistance, Liberation and Development” coalition of Hezbollah and Amal won all 23 seats up for grabs in the south, according to official results announced by Interior Minister Hassan Al-Sabaa Monday.

The Interior Ministry has said turnout among the 675,000 eligible voters was 45 percent, compared to only 23 percent in the first phase in the capital Beirut.

Thousands of supporters waving yellow Hezbollah and green Amal flags drove through villages and towns, honking their horns.

Fireworks exploded above central Beirut as the celebrations spilled over to the capital on Sunday night.

Speaker of parliament and Amal's leader Nabih Berri on Sunday thanked the people of southern Lebanon "for their confidence in the coalition and for its continued victory, with all its candidates.”

“This is not a steamroller victory... this is a victory that is like the waves of the sea, it cannot subside before fulfilling its demands and objectives in ending deprivation and deterring aggression,” he said.

An Amal-Hizbullah alliance won a landslide in the south in the last general election in 2000, only months after Hizbullah's heroic resistance operations forced Israel to withdraw from south Lebanon in 2000 after 22 years of occupation.

Hizbullah has 12 members in the present 128-seat assembly.

The first stage of the legislative polls was won by a coalition championed by Saad Hariri, the son of slain former premier Rafiq Hariri whose assassination in a February bomb blast unleashed a massive political upheaval in Lebanon and is a major factor in the elections.

Central and eastern Lebanon will vote next Sunday in what promises to be the most heated round of polling.

Lebanon has some three million eligible voters, 59 percent Muslim and 41 percent Christian, who will be contesting 128 parliamentary seats to be shared equally by the Christian and Muslim communities.