BEIRUT, Lebanon, May 10 (UPI) -- Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's followers won a landslide victory in Beirut's municipal elections and Hezbollah won in the Bekaa, reports said Monday.
Initial results of the ballot that took place Sunday in the capital and the Bekaa, east of Lebanon, indicated candidates backed by Hariri won all 24 seats of Beirut's municipality.
The billionaire premier's partisans defeated rivals backed by the Communist Party and the Christian opposition's Free Patriotic Movement.
Interior Minister Elias Murr estimated the turnout in Beirut at only 23 percent, while in the Bekaa valley, especially the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbeck, turnout was said to be as high as 70 percent.
Hezbollah defeated by a large majority its Shiite rival group, Amal, which is led by Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, in Baalbeck and most of the villages and towns in the Bekaa.
The municipal elections, which kicked off May 2 in the district of Mount Lebanon, will continue for another two Sundays in south and north Lebanon.
