BEIRUT AND TEHRAN — A U.S.-backed coalition's election victory over an alliance led by the militant Hezbollah movement sets the stage for a new period of political discord in Lebanon, analysts and officials said Monday.
One point of contention, they noted, will be the arsenal of weapons held by the Shiite Muslim militiamen of Hezbollah.
Election officials Monday confirmed a decisive parliamentary election victory of the so-called March 14 coalition, led by pro-U.S. lawmaker and billionaire Saad Hariri, over a Shiite-Christian alliance called March 8.
Hariri's coalition, which includes Sunni, Christian and Druze parties, won 71 of the parliament's 128 seats. The March 8 alliance won 57, according to official numbers cited by the government news agency.
Hezbollah and its closest allies had characterized the vote as a referendum on their armed resistance to Israel. The March 14 coalition campaigned on a platform of disarming Hezbollah.
Hariri has repeatedly ruled out the possibility of granting the opposition the same veto power it received after a deal last year that ended clashes between Hezbollah and his Sunni supporters in Beirut and elsewhere. That deal allowed Hezbollah to retain its arms.
"I expect a real political crisis if March 14 digs their heels in on this," said political analyst Amal Saad-Ghorayeb.
Signs of strife over Hezbollah's weapons emerged immediately after the vote. Hezbollah lawmaker Mohammad Raad told Agence France-Presse on Monday that the majority must "commit not to question our role as a resistance party, the legitimacy of our weapons arsenal and the fact that Israel is an enemy state."
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah noted that his party won big in areas of Lebanon near Israel and said it would discuss its weapons only in a "calm and objective" atmosphere.
"Saving this country requires the cooperation of everybody," he said in a televised speech.
The more immediate challenge for both sides is forming a government, a process that is unlikely to be quickly resolved. "The political picture will not be different, but the political agreement will be tedious and will take time," said Ghassan Azzi, a professor of political science at Lebanese University. "The March 14 coalition cannot disarm Hezbollah even if they win the whole parliament."
