The conflict between Iran and the West will tower over the Lebanese tomorrow as they head to the polls in the most closely fought parliamentary election for more than three decades.

Countless millions of dollars have been spent on lavish campaigns — as well as on vote buying — to hand victory to either the Western-backed March 14 coalition, which forms the backbone of the Government, or the March 8 opposition bloc led by the militant Shias of Hezbollah. The race is so close that two or three seats in the 128-seat parliament could decide the results.

Interest in the outcome ranges far beyond Lebanon’s borders. President Ahmadinejad of Iran has said a win for its Hezbollah ally will “strengthen the resistance and change the status in the region”. Israel has warned that it will adopt a “gloves-off” attitude to such a result.

Last month Joe Biden travelled to Beirut to rally the March 14 coalition, in the first visit by a US vice-president in 26 years.

“This is unlike any other election in the region because the two camps are so heavily identified with regional and international backers,” said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment’s Middle East Centre in Beirut.

The narrative of the Middle East for the past six decades has been shaped by the Arab-Israeli conflict. But today the political contours of the region are defined by a “cold war” pitting Iran, Syria and their allies Hezbollah and Hamas against the so-called Arab moderates of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt as well as the US and even Israel — all of whom fret at Tehran’s rising influence in the Middle East.

The fault line in the new “cold war” runs through Lebanon.

Hezbollah fields a powerful army that drove Israeli troops from Lebanon nine years ago and fought Israel to a standstill in a month-long war in 2006. International and domestic demands that Hezbollah should disarm have intensified in recent years. However, an opposition win tomorrow will allow the March 8 block to dictate the formation of the next government, greatly enhancing Hezbollah’s ability to resist pressure to disarm.

Saad Hariri, the head of the Future Movement, and a leading March 14 figure, has vowed not to join a coalition government if the Hezbollah-led opposition wins. His allies have been more circumspect, however.

“Let’s wait and see what is decided after the election,” Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon’s Druze community, said.

Michel Aoun, a former Lebanese army commander, heads the largest Christian parliamentary block and is Hezbollah’s main political ally. Although General Aoun’s party fared well in the elections four years ago, his subsequent alliance with Hezbollah dented his appeal to many Christians.

The main long-term beneficiary of the election could turn out to be Michel Suleiman, the Lebanese President. Elected a year ago as a consensus head of state, Mr Suleiman has shown greater readiness lately to enter the political fray. He has encouraged the emergence of a block of independent candidates who could end up holding the balance of power between the larger rival coalitions of March 14 and March 8.

About 19,000 Lebanese expatriates have flown home to vote — some of them persuaded to make the trip by politicians offering to pay their air fares. Vote buying, long a feature of the Lebanese electoral scene, has been rampant this time around. Some heads of large families were receiving offers of $25,000 as long ago as December. Other politicians are paying several hundred dollars a time to people not to vote for rival candidates.

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