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BEIRUT (AFP) - Lebanese Prime Minister Salim Hoss admitted Monday to a crushing defeat in legislative elections against his predecessor, billionaire businessman Rafiq Hariri.
"I bow to the results of the elections. I accept it democratically and act accordingly," Hoss said at a press conference. But Hoss, who lost his parliamentary seat, also denied rumors he was resigning or giving up his political career, saying, "I will continue to work from outside parliament." According to unofficial results, Hariri and his supporters took all 19 seats in the capital Beirut in the second and final round of legislative polls Sunday. "The elections were free and honest, but they were not democratic and that is because it was subjected to political money and sectarianism," Hariri said, apparently referring to a massive voting by the Sunni community. "More money was spent in the elections in Beirut than what is usually spent in U.S. presidential elections across all the United States. Here everything had a price: the walls, the balconies ... even people's conscience," he said. According to Lebanon's political system, the prime minister should be a Sunni Muslim, the speaker of the parliament a Shiite Muslim and the president a Maronite Christian. Hoss, however, said he did not consider his defeat a rebuke of his government's performance, "since six ministers have been re-elected to the parliament" during the polls, held over two weekends. The defeat of Hoss, along with three of his ministers, was the first time in modern Lebanese history that a serving prime minister lost at the polls. Hariri won in the face of a vicious campaign by the state-run media, accusing him in the six years while he was prime minister of plunging the country into a bottomless economic crisis and running up debts that will total $25 billion at the end of 2000. Hariri's success makes him a favorite to resume the office, which he quit in 1998 amid differences with newly elected President Emile Lahoud, who accused his administration of corruption. Lahoud seemed late Sunday to accept the new situation, when he said that his consultations with parliament on the choice of the next prime minister would take place in line with the constitution. The constitution of Lebanon, which is dominated by Syria, calls for the president to select the new prime minister after consulting with members of the freshly elected parliament. |
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