‘Battle of colours’ marks Lebanese election campaigns

Said Dhaher
For Al-Shorfa.com
2009-06-05

A lingerie billboard is seen among those of candidates in the June 7 parliamentary elections in the Damour area south of Beirut, May 28. (Reuters/Sharif Karim)

Rival party candidates are locked in a final battle of slogans and campaign colours as voting day looms in Lebanon’s crucial elections. Every street and motorway is bedecked with posters of candidates and election banners, with the unique exception of the Alia and Shouf districts, where Democratic Gathering leader Walid Jumblatt has declined to erect any election publicity at all.

Colour coding is beginning to overtake written slogans in getting competing messages across. Parties are no longer defined as ‘right’ or ‘left’ but by their representative colours instead. A characteristic orange denotes the campaign publicity of Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, and yellow that of its principal ally Hezbollah. Nabih Berri has chosen green to promote his Amal Movement, while Saad Al-Hariri’s Future Bloc uses blue, the Al-Marada Party a pistachio green and the Lebanese Forces red and white.

Women are also playing an unexpected role in the campaign, with the Free Patriotic Movement using a poster of a beautiful young woman with the caption “Be beautiful and vote” in French and the word “vote” in orange (i.e. vote “orange”).

Aoun’s enemies were quick to denounce the poster, taking exception to the use of the woman. Some suggested changing the French caption to “Be beautiful and be quiet”. Others have uploaded a photo of the poster girl wearing a veil on the Internet with a warning that this is how she will look if her sponsors and their Hezbollah allies win the election. The March 14 group also lifted Aoun’s French slogan for their publicity notice to women, modifying it to “Be equal and vote”.

The Future Bloc are employing the colour blue in more ways than one, with banners confirming that they will not tolerate any return by the Syrian army to Lebanon under the legend “As long as the sky is blue, they will not return!”

The Lebanese Forces, meanwhile, has responded to tactics used by Hezbollah and its allies, who blocked the road to Beirut airport, burned tyres and caused delays in the capital by coming up with a poster of masked individuals depicted against the background of black smoke rising from a road barrier of burning tyres with the slogan “Your vote will change the whole picture”.

Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal and all illegal arsenals are also targeted by the Phalangist Party, whose slogan is: “Your stability is our business ... parliament is our weapon”. The Phalangists have also mocked Michel Aoun’s campaign promise of “Change and Reform” with a publicity poster bearing a drawing of the president beside the Maronite Patriarchate and the caption “Do not change your religious authorities”, in an allusion to Aoun’s new alliance with Syria and Iran.

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