Lebanese Voters Back Ruling Coalition

In an election that was watched with great interest by Western governments, wary of any increase in support for an opposition that includes Hezbollah, the ruling pro-Western March 14 coalition retained it's majority in the Lebanese parliament.

Recording a victory by 71 seats to 57, March 14 is an alliance led by Saad Hariri, son of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri whose assassination in 2005 has been blamed by many on elements in Lebanon who are linked to the Syrian Government. The governing alliance draws support from both Muslim and Christian communities, although it is in the Sunni Muslim community that it's support is perhaps strongest. The opposition March 8 Alliance too draws support from both of the main faith communities but it's base is amongst the Shia Muslims. That Shia community includes Hezbollah who, as reported by CNN, enjoy the support of Syria and Iran and are classified as a terrorist group by the USA. The respective alliances take their names from the dates in 2005 when large protests, anti-Syrian in the case of March 14 and pro-Syrian in the case of March 8, took place in Lebanon. In announcing the election result, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud put the turnout at 54%, the highest in the country since the end of the Civil War in the early 1990s. This in a country whose population currently stands between 3 and 4 million and which has a worldwide diaspora of several million more. Perched as it is to the north of Israel and with Syria to it's own north and east, Lebanon has often found itself at the center of a wider Middle East conflict that has claimed countless lives over the years. A country that secured it's independence from France in 1943, it's capital Beirut is a popular tourist destination sometimes referred to as the "Paris of the Middle East", Lebanon endured a civil war between 1975 and 1990 that saw over 100,000 people dead and thousands more displaced. The long established home to many thousands of Palestinian refugees, and now large numbers of Iraqi refugees too, the Lebanese have become accustomed to the presence on their soil of troops from other nations. Most notably, but not exclusively, Syria and Israel. The former having 15,000 troops stationed in the country until 2005 when mass protests by the Lebanese people prompted their withdrawal and the latter sending troops into Lebanon in 2006 to confront Hezbollah fighters who were firing rockets into the Jewish state. And it is well documented how both countries were key participants in the aforementioned 15 year long civil war. It remains to be seen if the latest election results will herald any kind of prolonged stability for a country found on the eastern extreme of the Mediterranean Sea. Because for sure, considerably more people than just those found within the borders of Lebanon will be monitoring it's progress very closely.