Beirut - Lebanon - Hassan Al Sabaa :the Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan Al Sabaa announced at a news conference Monday morning , May 30, 2005 the final and official results of the polls that took place in Beirut on Sunday, May 29.
Beirut is divided into 3 electoral districts. The results for each district are as follows:
Beirut District no.1 : Turnout 31 percent.
Losers: Adnan Arakji - 7,379 ; Badr Tabsh - 6,182 ; Ibrahim Halaby - 3,614 ; Zuhair Khatib - 148 ;Nabila Saab - 110 ; Ahmed Yassin - 28 ; Ibrahim Mehdi Shamseddin - 4,172 ;Ali Shahrour - 491 ; Salah Osseiran - 45; Najah Wakim - 14,231 ; Raymond Asmar - 6,212.
Beirut District no.3: Turnout 20 percent
Winners: Mohammed Kabbani - 24,572 ; Ghenwa Jalloul - 23,731.
Losers: Adnan Trabulsi - 5442 ; Yahya Ahmed - 1,765.
Overall Turnout in Beirut Region: 28 percent
Total number of eligible voters : 420,000
The above results confirm that Hariri list won all the 19 seats allocated for Beirut.
As expected, many people in Beirut stayed away because Hariri's victory was a foregone conclusion. Nine of the 19 candidates among them the 4 Armenian candidates(Yeghia Djeredjian,Serj Tur-Sarkisian,Jean Oghasabian,Hagop Kasardjian) won by default before elections, since they were unopposed.
The Armenian Candidates was supported by Hunchag & Ramgavar Parties.The Tashnag party was boycotting the elections in Beirut & have no members in the new Parliament,also they used all anti-democratic methods to make Armenians not vote.
Beirut had a 34 percent turnout in 2000, when Hariri's father, then cooperating with Syria, also swept the board.
For the first time, foreign observers monitored the polls, with a team of more than 100 led by the European Union.
Thousands of supporters drove through the streets, blaring horns and flying Lebanese flags as fireworks lit the night sky over Beirut's center, rebuilt by the slain Hariri from the ruins of the 1975-1990 civil war.
Hariri announced earlier that he and his allies are expected to win 80 to 90 seats in the new parliament. He will therefore be very active until the last day of elections. His first objective is to get rid of the pro Syrian Lebanese president Emile Lahoud.
Rafik al-Hariri shadow hangs over the elections, not only in Beirut, but all over Lebanon.
