Monday, August 06, 2007

Amin Gemayyel: on why he lost. Today, the loser candidate, Amin Gemayyel, held a press conference to explain his loss. Typically, he resorted to sectarian and racist arguments. He said that he won 57% of the Maronite vote while `Awn's candidate won 43% of the Maronite vote. But that happens in election. Only 16 of the Christian members of the Lebanese parliament won with Christian votes only. Most of the Christian MPs in March 14 movement, won around 20% of all Christian votes in the districts. In fact, the district were designed by Rafiq Hariri (who consistently disregarded Christian opinions in Lebanon) and Syrian mukhabarat to produce Christian MPs selected and approved by Muslims voters. And then Gemayyel said that `Awn's candidate received 97% of the Shi`ite vote and 50% of the Sunni vote (there are only a few hundreds of Muslims in the Matn district), and thus he can claim that Muslims made the victory of `Awn possible. Do you see that argument? (He also added that one can lose an election and be proud of his loss, and somebody can win an election and be ashamed of his victory). This is like a losing white candidate in a US election complaining that while he/she won the white vote, he/she lost because of the black vote. That is called elections, Mr. Gemayyel. Get over it, and stop exploiting the death of your son.