One thing is missing from this election has been campaigning itself.

Lebanon goes to the polls to elect a new Parliament free of direct Syrian interference. Beginning in Beirut, the elections will continue over four successive Sundays in different parts of the country to elect a new 128-member legislature that will choose a new cabinet and presumably begin to tackle Lebanon's major problems.

But after months of street rallies, million people demonstrations, international crises and political intrigue, the country's polls are proving an anticlimax for many here. The popular uprisings and the sense of a dramatic change have largely been overtaken by familiar politics and the sense that little may in fact has changed.

"It's very bewildering because it's not really an election this year," said Paul Salem, a onetime political analyst who is running for an orthodox seat in the town of Koura. "If it was my district I would normally be running a campaign, but instead I have to convince the bosses that run the lists."

Save for a few singular campaign events held for select groups, there has been little effort to reach the average voter here, many candidates admit.

Instead, most campaigning has amounted to a series of behind the door deals to tie up with lists that seek to pool votes for greatest effect. That has resulted in ironic twists in which alliances tie up in one town but stand opposed in others.

Because of the unwritten constitutional agreement ( Al Mithaq Alwatani) , Lebanon's elections, like its politics, are a labyrinth of sectarian divisions and time-honored tradition. As agreed in the Al Taif accord, the 128-member Parliament is evenly split between Christians and Muslims, while the country's demographic distribution is widely different. In effect it means that Christians, who make up less than 40 percent of the population, have far more influence in Parliament than Muslims, with almost 60 percent.

In each voting district, seats are allocated to specific sects like Shiites, Maronites, Sunnites Druze, etc... and candidates from each sect can compete only for seats assigned to their sect. Voters, meanwhile, must return to the villages of their forefathers rather than voting where they live.

Adding to the complexity of the process are the electoral lists and alliances that have no legal or political standing but largely define the blocks in Parliament. Voters can strike out names from the ballots and substitute others, allowing them to mix and match from the lists.

Yet the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February and the political turmoil that followed have added an entirely new dimension to the election. Voting will be held under a controversial 2000 law that redrew the districts in such a manner as to best suit Syria's influence in the Lebanese Parliament.

The law makes for just five electoral regions (which are further divided into 14 electoral districts ) and essentially quashes the ability of some communities, especially minorities , to elect their local candidates.

"With this law, we will continue to have the same forces that ran the country for the past 15 years," said General Michel Aoun, the Christian opposition leader who returned from exile earlier this month. "These elections will not produce the free and fair elections that we want. But we cannot stop now." This is why General Aoun himself is aligning himself with pro Syrians in some electoral districts like Aley- Baabda district. If you want to call this the climax of confusion, it is.

The delay in adopting the election law, which was finalized about two weeks ago, has further hampered matters by leaving most candidates with only few days to campaign.
"It's a farce in any country to have an election in 20 days," said Adnan Arakji, who is leading an independent campaign against the Hariri list. Yet 9 out of the 19 candidates that constitute Hariri's list have already won without elections since they ran unopposed.

The real election battle will emerge in voting in the Christian-dominated Mount Lebanon region in two weeks, when several Christian leaders will vie for leadership.

"There is basically no contest among the Sunnis or among the Shiites," said Joseph Samaha, editor in chief of the Beirut daily As-Safir. "The real question is what happens to the Christians." Hariri will dominate the Sunnites while the Hezbollah and Speaker Berri will dominate the Shiites . In the Christian community Aoun added a new dimension to the battle of leadership and it remains to be seen, if he will be able to come out of the elections as the clear leader of the community.

This is why reforms in Lebanon are needed to make the country a true democracy.
View Ya Libnan's exclusive Guide to reforming Lebanon's Elections

Sources: IHT, Ya Libnan