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BEIRUT, Aug 14 (AFP)-Reports say with only two weeks left until parliamentary elections in Lebanon, charges abound that the vote will be rigged and that the electoral process is being manipulated not only by forces allied with the incumbent government but foreign interests as well. One of the most sweeping allegations has come from populist deputy Najah Wakim, who has withdrawn his candidacy and who Sunday night made an impassioned appeal on television for the elections to be postponed and the electoral laws to be revised. Voters are set to go to the polls in two stages - first on August 27 and then on September 3. Wakim said that countries such as Syria, Saudi Arabia and the United States are working to bring about a "parliament indifferent to an unjust resolution in the Middle East." Wakim, who has a strong following among younger voters, further claimed that the Lebanese intelligence services are cooperating in this effort. Predicting that the outcome of the vote will be "lopsided," he called for people to band together to work for change, particularly to the practice of dividing parliamentary seats along religious community lines that he says is responsible for Lebanon's ills. Wakim's appeal drew instant support not only from intellectuals and artists but even from Shiite Muslim leader Sheikh Mohammed Hassan al-Amin, who characterized the upcoming elections as a "farce." Charges of corruption are centering primarily on allegations that government intelligence services are meddling in the electoral process by twisting arms to form lists of candidates favorable to the government and certain to win. MP Nassib Lahoud, who comes from the same extended family as Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, has denounced Interior Minister Michel Murr, saying the agencies he controls are meddling in the campaign. That brought a retort from Murr that Lahoud "needs his head examining." Lahoud has gone directly on the attack, forming a group of candidates in an electoral district where his main rival will be one of his own relatives - Emile Lahoud Jr, the 25-year-old son of the president, whose sister is married to Murr's son. Former Prime Minister Omar Karameh has also denounced what he said is the "interference" by the intelligence services in "forming electoral alliances." Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Druze minority and head of the Progressive Socialist party, said in a statement to the press that "freedoms are being trampled," that Murr is "acting like a commissar" and that the "intelligence services are active in all electoral districts." For its part, the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections claims that agencies not only of the Lebanese government, but also of the Syrian government, are "exerting pressure at all stages" of the electoral process. Syria exercises ultimate political control in Lebanon, a country in which it stations about 35,000 troops. Despite all the allegations, no one has yet come forward with any concrete proof to back them up. And Prime Minister Salim Hoss, himself a candidate, has called on those who have complaints of interference in the electoral process to come forward and make them formally, promising that the judicial system will deal with them impartially. According to political analysts, this outcry is unlikely to alter the timing of the elections, but it does represent an addition to the voices of those who have already written off the vote. Three Christian parties - the banned Lebanese Forces, the National Liberal Party of Dory Chamoun and the Free National Current of exiled General Michel Aoun has already announced their boycott of the elections. They have denounced what they say is an absence of conditions that would permit a vote free of all outside interference, notably that of Syria. |
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