Hezbollah-backed MP Arslan loses seat to newcomer, Hezbollah official says

Hezbollah-backed Druze politician Talal Arslan lost a seat he has held for three decades to an opposition candidate in parliamentary polls on Sunday, a Hezbollah official and the newcomer's campaign manager said, citing preliminary results. He lost his seat to newcomer Mark Daou, an advertising consultant and professor of media studies.

Hezbollah-backed Druze politician Talal Arslan lost a seat he has held for three decades to an opposition candidate in parliamentary polls on Sunday, a Hezbollah official and the newcomer's campaign manager said, citing preliminary results. Talal Arslan, 65, hails from one of Lebanon's main traditional political dynasties and is a key Druze ally of both Hezbollah and the Syrian government.

He was elected to parliament in 1992 and has been re-elected four times since, simultaneously serving as a government minister a half-dozen times in various posts since the 1990s. He lost his seat to newcomer Mark Daou, an advertising consultant and professor of media studies. Preliminary results showed that Daou's list, "We United for Change," also won two other seats in a major breakthrough for independents, the campaign manager said.