Monday, June 08, 2009

Hezbollah Loses in Lebanon

The radical Shiite Hezbollah organization has suffered an unexpected drubbing in the Lebanese elections. Just a week ago, Hezbollah was considered the favourite to take enough seats to form and lead a coalition government.

The Western-backed coalition took 68-seats in the 128-seat parliament while the Hezbollah coalition won 57-seats. Both sides have said they want a national unity government but the Hezbollah leadership has yet to speak out on the election results.

2 comments:

  1. All that happened was that the status quo was maintained. You should check out Juan Cole's informative post on the election if you haven't already.

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  2. Thanks for the link RM. It was really informative. Still, while the status quo has been maintained, just a week ago many observers were speculating on a Hezbollah alliance victory. In that context this election is something of a welcome upset.

    Meanwhile it's beginning to look as though the knives are out for Ahmadinejad in Tehran. Wouldn't that be manna from heaven for Obama?

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