Hezbollah guerrillas won acclaim across the Arab world for fending off Israel's military might in a 34-day war in 2006.
They still have thousands of rockets pointed south, across a buffer zone controlled by U.N. peacekeepers. Their well-drilled fighters outgun the Lebanese army and give the movement far more political clout than its 11 seats in the 128-member parliament.
A U.S.- and Saudi-backed bloc headed by Sunni politician Saad al-Hariri won a surprise victory in Sunday's poll, taking 71 seats against 57 for Hezbollah and its main allies, the Shi'ite Amal faction and Christian leader Michel Aoun.
The sighs of relief in Washington, Riyadh and Cairo are understandable. But the vote barely alters the underlying power balance in Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds the upper hand.
Hezbollah and Amal candidates swept Shi'ite areas in the election. The opposition alliance lost overall because Aoun failed to do the same in mainly Christian districts.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Monday he accepted the election result in a "sporting and democratic" spirit, but made clear the opposition was still a force to be reckoned with in Lebanon's consensus-based political system.
His deputy, Sheikh Naim Kassem, told Reuters on Wednesday that Hezbollah, listed by the United States as a terrorist organisation, had decided to "open a new page for the coming stage" and promised cooperation with the election victors.
But he said Hariri's bloc must show goodwill.
"We will wait for what the other side offers. If it decides on a programme, a vision and a method that is different from the past and that opens new horizons, they will find us by their side," Kassem said. "But if issues remain as before at a state of tension and monopoly (of power), then we will take a stand."
Everyone in Lebanon knows what he means.
CAPTURING THE STATE
"Hezbollah has already captured the state," said Ousama Safa, director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies. "It has done so last May. That is a fact on the ground."
In May 2008, Hezbollah-led gunmen briefly took over the Muslim half of Beirut in Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war. An accord mediated in the Qatari capital Doha then gave the opposition veto rights in cabinet.
Kassem would not say if the opposition would demand the same again, although some analysts see this as likely.
"It's going to be very difficult (for Hezbollah) to accept any government now which doesn't grant them the same veto power after they had to win it the hard way in Doha," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a Lebanese expert on Hezbollah.
With weeks of horse-trading expected before the next government emerges, it is also unclear if Hezbollah, or the opposition as a whole, will join a national unity cabinet.
Hezbollah, sure of its military and political power, may be be content that the vote did not thrust it into a greater role in managing Lebanon's affairs, notably its huge public debt.
"Arab and international governments would have reacted negatively, and investor confidence in Lebanon would have been undermined," wrote Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut. "A victory for the opposition alliance would also have strengthened Israel's argument that Hezbollah dominates Lebanon, leaving the country more exposed to attack." U.S. officials had warned bluntly before the election that aid to Lebanon hung on its outcome. Now Washington is likely to renew its support, especially for the Lebanese army.
Lebanon remains prone to regional conflicts, but prospects of internal compromise now seem better than a year ago when the United States and its Arab allies were angrily confronting Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and the Islamist Palestinian Hamas group.
Unlike his predecessor, U.S. President Barack Obama is reaching out to Iran, Syria and the Muslim world, while talking tough on Israeli settlements to try to keep alive the chance of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia and Syria have toned down their bitter rivalry, a detente that has helped stabilise Lebanon, where Riyadh and Damascus sponsor opposing camps.
"The regional calming-down is important," said Beirut-based analyst Rami Khouri, who said Hezbollah might be able to live without explicit veto power for the opposition in cabinet.
"It may not be formalised in an agreement, but it will be the reality that defines how decisions are made," he said.
Saad-Ghorayeb said the Shi'ite group was determined to keep its arms -- and in the last resort would use force if it had to.
"They don't want to have to go back to using those muscle-flexing tactics," she said. "They were pushed last time and they don't want to be pushed again. They would much rather secure this power politically rather than militarily."
Tags: Amal, Hezbollah, lebanon, Nasrallah, source: Reuters, Syria
