Lebanese Agree Election Law Needs Reform: UN Envoy
May 22 , 2005
BEIRUT (Reuters) — Lebanese politicians agree that electoral reform must be a priority after Lebanon holds its first parliamentary polls for three decades without Syrian troops in the country, a U.N. election expert said on Sunday.
Lebanese go to the polls in four rounds of voting from May 29 to June 19 under a widely criticised law designed to maximise the influence of pro-Syrian politicians in the 2000 elections.
“If there’s one area of consensus, it’s obviously that the 2000 law has flaws and also that the electoral law needs to be discussed immediately after the elections,” Carina Perelli, head of the U.N. elections unit, told Reuters in an interview.
Many Lebanese believe their politicians will simply go back to business as usual once the election is over and quietly forget their promises of reform made after protests by hundreds of thousands of people helped force the Syrian withdrawal.
Mukhtara, Lebanon: In an interview the Abu Dhabi TV Saturday night,opposition leader Walid Jumblat proposed the formation of a “Palestinian army Brigade” attached to the Lebanese army as a solution 
Supporters of Lebanon’s Phalange Party, wearing party uniforms originally used in the 1930s and re-tailored for the occasion, fold the Lebanese flag during a ceremony to unveil the statue of the party’s founder Pierre Gemayel in Bikfaya, Lebanon, Sunday, May 22, 2005. The Phalange Party, Lebanon’s most influential Christian political group now buffeted by infighting and dissent, was founded in 1936 to exert Christian power in Lebanon. After dominating Christian politics for decades, during the 1975-90 civil war the Phalange militias fought against Muslim forces and Palestinian guerrillas. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Tawil) 
group Hezbollah stressed that it will not allow Israel to cross the “red line” and attack Lebanese civilians or targets, a senior Hezbollah official said. 
BEIRUT (Reuters) – Anti-Syrian Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun said on Sunday he would run in Lebanon’s parliamentary election despite difficulties in forging an electoral alliance with Muslim opposition leaders. The fiery retired general said talks on linking up with Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Saad al-Hariri, a Sunni Muslim, had produced no agreement on a joint ticket for the polls.
. The first was the brilliant decision by the redevelopment firm Solidere – in which Hariri held 10 percent of the shares – to announce the results not in one of Beirut’s swank hotels, but in a war-ruined shopping centre and cinema complex that still lies next to the square.
