Will the real Christian leader please stand up?

Now that the Interior Ministry has released the final voting count for the Metn, it has become clear that Aounist Camille Khoury has won. Interesting enough, neither Nahar, nor Tayyar (!), nor the Daily Star found this piece of info worthwhile enough to mention the morning after at 7:30 AM. Luckily, CNN does a better job.

So there we are: Michel Aoun has won the Metn elections with 39,534 against 39,116 votes acording to the press release of the Minister of Interior. A difference of 418 votes, or half a percent difference. Regardless, the victory is Aoun's and despite all the sympathy that went out to the opponent Amin Gemayel for succeeding his murdered son, the Metn people have preferred Aoun.

Gemayel has already announced to contest the outcome, especially the handling of voting boxes in the Armenian polling stations. My advice would be to get over it and to accept the outcome of the democratic elections. Especially the complaint from March 14 circles that Aoun has had bus loads of voters brought in from Syria sound either naive or hypocritical since the March 14 were always in favor of giving Lebanese residing abroad the right to vote. So don't complain to see your wish come true.

Cynics will say that Aoun got his victory thanks to the support of the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, the pro-Syrian politician Michel Murr and the pro-Syrian Armenian party Tachnaq. Supporters of Aoun, however, would say that he is able to reach out to other parties, even to erstwhile enemies whereas March 14 candidate Gemayel was unable or unwilling to form such alliances.

Much has been speculated about the reasons why March 14 has called out for this election. Looking back one can only note that it has not been the best decision possible: Amin Gemayel has lost face and his chances for a political return (some even speculated of him running for president) are pretty much decimated for the time being.

Like Michael Young wrote in his latest column, these elections have weakened the Christian community. The question arises why no one has foreseen that it would. Was March 14 really thinking Michel Aoun wouldn't have the guts to launch a counter candidate? Or forget about 'guts' even, he was fully in his rights to do so and right up his alley since he is always rallying against the system of 'family politics' in Lebanon where seats stay within families and newcomers hardly have a chance to enter the political arena. Knowing all of this, who couldn't have known that he wouldn't run?

The elections could have been a ploy to weaken Michel Aoun before the presidential elections, assuming that March 14 expected him to lose moral credibility if he would run and that he would lose subsequently. While the first objective was achieved according to many Christians (going against the patriarch is a sure way to go), the second goal was missed. In fact, this can be enough to compensate the loss in moral standing.

The Christians who voted for him will feel vindicated, while others might give Aoun the benefit of the doubt next time...oh...let's say in a few weeks when the presidential elections take place. All in all, this whole election was not a smart move of March 14. The argument of March 14 to have by elections after Walid Edo was killed, sounded plausible at the time, yet now we know different.
Lawyers use to say that you should never ask a witness a question unless you know the outcome. Politicians should never organize optional elections unless they know the results as well.