Aoun on Collision Course with Hariri's Family and Jumblat

Aoun on Collision Course with Hariri's Family and Jumblat Two major opposition groups have kicked off their election campaign on a platform of ousting President Lahoud from power as a head-on collision seemed brewing between the coalition of Walid Jumblat and Saad Rafik Hariri on one hand and returning Gen. Michel Aoun on the other."Lahoud is doomed. He will face his fatalistic destiny," screamed Beirut legislator Mohammed Kabbani as Harirists triggered off their electioneering expedition in a breakfast they gave for prominent families of the capital on Sunday. "We have almost finished off the pillars of Lahoud's police state, especially the intelligence services that he used to terrorize the public," said Ghazi Aridi, a senior Jumblat aide who runs for parliament on the Hariri list. "Now is the turn of the head of that police state." Saad Hariri is scheduled to announce his list for Beirut's 19 seats in parliament at a mass rally Monday afternoon, hoping to repeat his slain father's shutout sweep of the capital's seats in the 2000 elections, according to media reports. But legislator Kabbani said the list would be announced "sometime this week."Sources close to the Hariri family in Koreitem spoke of anger over a pledge by Aoun to fight what he called the "corruption of political money that accumulated Lebanon's staggering debt," which was seen as parroting the same charges of Hariri's foes that he overspent drastically in rebuilding Beirut from the ravages of the civil war. The sources noted that the general made the remark in a victory speech he delivered at the Martyrs' Square minutes after laying a floral wreath on Hariri's grave.Aoun, they noted, is struggling to take the entire credit for Syria's ouster from Lebanon by bringing about U.N. Resolution 1559, contending Hariri's assassination was just accelerating factor.Calling Aoun the 'returning Tsunami," Jumblat, who was Hariri's closest political ally in his lifetime, rejected Aoun's 'acceleration' concept, saying "only Hariri's blood forced Syria to evacuate Lebanon and create the truest national unity Lebanon has ever felt."Aoun has expressed reservation about the opposition drive to sack Lahoud from the Baabda Palace, saying such a move would be in the cards only if the May-June elections produced a majority in favor of Lahoud's ouster.Aoun's growing split with Jumblat and Hariri's Tayyar Al Mustaqbal Movement is seen by the Beirut media as a potential catalyst for drastic changes on the elections scene as such pro-Syrian loyalists as Hizbullah and Talal Arslan were singing the general's praise.