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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Syria's man wins Lebanon byelection |
| 2007-08-06 |
| LEBANON'S Syrian-backed opposition won a key byelection that left the country's Christians deeply divided ahead of polls to elect a new president, who is traditionally a Christian. Camille Khoury, a candidate backed by Christian leader Michel Aoun and allied with Hezbollah, narrowly beat anti-Damascus former president Amin Gemayel on Sunday. Mr Khoury won 39,534 votes, against 39,116 votes for Mr Gemayel, whose representative has lodged a "complaint on the results", Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh said, without giving more details. Mr Gemayel, a prominent leader of the Western-backed ruling majority, had been vying to replace his son Pierre Gemayel, killed last November in one of a series of attacks blamed by the majority on Syria. Damascus has rejected the accusations. Mr Sabeh earlier told reporters that the ruling majority candidate, Mohamad Amin Itani, had won a landslide victory in another byelection that was also held on Sunday in Beirut. The byelections were held to replace two anti-Syrian MPs killed in attacks blamed by the Western-backed majority on Damascus, which supports the Hezbollah-led opposition. Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, a Christian, was gunned down in Beirut on November 21 last year, and Sunni Walid Eido was killed in a car bombing in the capital on June 13. After the end of the byelections, the two camps immediately called for self-restraint, as hundreds of supporters from both sides gathered in public squares amid a heavy deployment of army and security forces backed by armoured vehicles. Mr Aoun announced Mr Khoury's victory over Mr Gemayel in a televised speech, and appealed for calm. But Mr Gemayel refused to admit defeat until official results were announced and demanded a rerun of the vote in one mainly Armenian region, where he claimed voter fraud. |
| Posted by:Fred |