ANALYSIS - Close Lebanon election could favour Hezbollah

By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's parliamentary election looks tight, but Hezbollah and its allies have a good chance to win a slim edge over their Saudi- and Western-backed rivals.

Many local analysts predict a small swing in that direction in the June 7 vote, but there is no reliable opinion polling.

Iran and Syria would certainly applaud such a result, which would be seen as a setback for the United States, four years after the anti-Syrian "March 14" coalition took power in Beirut.

Yet the Shi'ite Hezbollah and Amal factions, which, along with Christian leader Michel Aoun, form the core of the "March 8" alliance, would likely ask their opponents to join another unwieldy national unity government, limiting the chances of any radical shift in Lebanon's political or economic orientation.

"It has been clear for some time that Hezbollah has a very strong interest in ensuring a national unity framework," said Karim Makdissi, who teaches international relations at the American University of Beirut.

"It has absolutely no intention of a hostile takeover of the state, so it is in its strategic interest to ensure it has a measure of legitimacy and credibility within official channels."

Hezbollah, the only Lebanese faction to remain armed after the 1975-90 civil war, has involved itself in domestic politics largely to keep the weapons it says it needs to deter Israel.

Its vote machine among Shi'ites, whose eligible voters are just outnumbered by Sunnis, is as formidable as its military one. But it is contesting only 11 of the assembly's 128 seats, most of which are effectively allotted in advance under Lebanon's complex sectarian power-sharing system.