Fists flew, rocks and bottles were thrown, property was vandalized, and offices were ransacked in the middle-class Beirut neighborhood. The scuffle took place in front of the People's Movement party headquarters, where the pro-Syrian election candidate Najah Wakim failed to secure a seat in Parliament.

Supporters of rival parties of Walid Jumblatt (Progressive Socialist Party) and Saad Hariri (Tayyar Al Mustaqbal), who claimed victory only hours earlier, fought with Wakim's followers. Wakim was conducting a live interview with a Beirut TV network when the clash flared at 10 p.m. Sunday. He terminated the interview, and immediately accused Jumblatt and Hariri directly of responsibility for the violence.

According to Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa, a suspected Syrian intelligence agent fired shots in the air outside the party headquarters while sneaking by in a motorcycle, and raced off into a nearby celebration parade for Jumblatt and Hariri supporters. When the parade approached Mosseitbeh, the motorcyclist instigated the brawl when he fired shots at Wakim's supporters. The motorcyclist is in custody, undergoing interrogation.

Jumblatt and Michel Aoun didn't roll up their sleeves, but were close to the edge. In a speech at a luncheon held at the U.S. Embassy, Aoun blamed the start of Lebanon's civil war on the presence here of Syrian troops and armed Palestinian factions, to which Jumblatt replied: "Internal disagreements led to the war and I fought against you for domestic reasons, not regional ones."

He continued to dismiss Aoun's comment, urging people to move on and stop dwelling on the past: "Stop talking about the country's 15-year civil war, turn the page and open the page of the future."

Hariri's party also condemned Aoun's continued use of divisive civil war language. On multiple occasions, Aoun has made references to West Beirut and East Beirut, the two sides of Lebanon's capital that were divided by religion during the civil war.

Aoun publicly campaigned for a boycott of Sunday's elections, particularly in Beirut's Christian populated neighborhoods, including Ashrafiyeh and Rmeil to impose a low Christian turnout.

Solange Gemayel, widow of former President Bashir Gemayel, questioned Aoun's intentions, "it is strange that the General advocated a boycott of the Beirut polls while he is calling for a massive turnout in other electoral districts like Mt. Lebanon and North Lebanon."

Aoun discounted Saad Hariri's absolute victory of all of Beirut's parliamentary seats, accused his rivals of over-spending on their campaign, calling Hariri's Tayyar Al Mustaqbal victory a "failure". He accused Hariri of using his father's death to his advantage, "the problem today is that everybody is pretending they are martyrs themselves."

Adding more fuel to the fire, Aoun claimed "Najah Wakim has won even though he has lost." Ironically Wakim, who ran for an Orthodox seat against Hariri's Atef Majdalani, was one of Sunday's biggest losers, where he received over 25% less votes than Majdalani.

Sources: Ya Libnan, Naharnet, The Daily Star