LEBANON - Aug 5 - High Turnout As Lebanon's Christians Contest Seat.

Lebanese voters turn out in their thousands in two by-elections that have provided the latest battleground between the pro-western government of Fouad Siniora and his pro-Syrian opponents, led by the Shi'ite Hizbullah movement. One race was regarded as a key test of strength between two rival Christian parties competing for the presidency, a position currently held by the pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud. Turnout was particularly high, at more than 50%, in Metn where tensions had flared during the campaign between the two Christian candidates. Amin Gemayel, a former president and a leader of the anti-Syrian ruling coalition, was seeking to replace his son Pierre, an industry minister assassinated in November last year. Gemayel and his family visited Pierre's grave before casting their vote. "We promise him that his blood will not be in vain", Gemayel told reporters. He was competing against a candidate from the movement of Michel Aoun, a former general who has allied himself with the pro-Syrian Hizbullah movement. Both sides were trying to assert their strength in order to claim leadership of the Christian community, from which the country's president is chosen. Parliament votes in September or October to replace the president. In an interview broadcast on the al-Jazeera international satellite television station, Aoun appeared to be playing down the importance of the by-election by saying that, should he lose, it would not undermine the significance of the elections in 2005 in which he won a majority of the Christian seats contested. In Beirut, the ruling Future movement declared shortly after voting in the second by-election closed that it had retained the Sunni seat of Walid Eido, a murdered MP. He died along with nine others in an explosion on the capital's seafront in June in the latest of a string of attacks on anti-Syrian leaders since 2005. A pro-Syrian candidate ran in Beirut but Hizbullah had called on its supporters to boycott the elections on the grounds that they were unconstitutional. The Hizbullah movement and its allies, including Aoun and President Lahoud, declared the government illegitimate after they withdrew their ministers from it in November last year. The two sides have been locked in a political stand-off since then, which has paralysed the country politically and has led to several outbreaks of political violence. The opposition has also been camping out in Beirut's business centre since December in a protest against the western-backed government, demanding a new government in which it will hold veto power.