478 Resisting Publics
lthough Hizbullah’s “despised” Prime Minister Sanyura headed A
the new cabinet, Hizbullah had obtained, by force,^77 its long-awaited veto
power and appeared to have acquired even more political capital from
its campaign of civil disobedience than it had from the 2006 war with
Israel. Would the Doha Accord constitute a springboard for another Ta’if
Agreement—and a new constitution—whereby the Lebanese Shi‘a would
wield more political power, especially after Mufti Qabalan, the deputy of
the Islamic Shi‘i Higher Council, called for instituting the post of a Shi‘i
vice president? Aiming at more hegemony, on 18 August 2008, Hizbullah
reached out to its ideological enemies, the jihādῑ Salafists, and signed with
them an “Understanding”^78 aimed mainly at warding off Sunni-Shi‘i dis-
cord [fitna] in the future.
With these hopes, Hizbullah launched its 2009 election program on
1 March and entered the legislative elections on 7 June.^79 To the dismay of
the Hizbullah-led opposition, 71 seats were won by 14 March and only 57
seats went to March 8, in elections that witnessed a 54.8% turnout. Thus,
one year after the Doha Accord, 8 March failed to effect change by demo-
cratic means and, most likely, will be forced to work under the status quo
that prevailed after the 2005 legislative elections.
n spite of Hizbullah’s failure to achieve its aims in the latest elec-I
tions and possible ruptures with both the elite and grassroots Shi‘i com-
munities^80 , it continues to actively expand its domain, including reach-
ing out to the international community and scoring diplomatic feats,
such as the groundbreaking 13 June 2009 meeting between European
Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana and Hizbullah MP Husayn Hajj
Hasan. The rapid evolution of Hizbullah from a marginal splinter group
to a dominant group in national and international politics seems to justify
Nasrallah’s 2007 statement that the movement was still in its early, and
vigorous, youth: “We survived more than a quarter of a century and we’re
here to stay; the future is ours.”^81