Matrit yesterday. He dismissed talk of his relative Eddie's involvement in the election. "It's all bullshit," he said. "The people who give them this information - ya know worr I mean - they are lying."

"Village" is almost too grand a term for Matrit. It's a couple of dozen traditional stone houses, clinging to a high scenic ridge above north Lebanon's Mediterranean coast. There is a petrol station, a ruined school, a decrepit mosque and two Maronite churches. No pub, not even a shop.

The total population is reckoned to be not more than a 150 or 200 - and most of them now live abroad or in the cities of the coast. Despite its seeming inconsequentiality, for the past couple of weeks Eddie Obeid has installed himself in oneof the dozen or so houses in his native village doing what he does best: working the numbers.

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Tomorrow, Matrit will hold its inaugural mayoral elections. Yola Obeid is a local solicitor and the daughter of Mr Obeid's late brother Joseph, who was a senior judge in Lebanon. Like most Matrit natives, she lives outside the town.

Telephoned by the Herald at her home in Tripoli yesterday, Ms Obeid would not say a bad word - and very few words at all - about her returned uncle. Relations, she said, were "good".

Asked about his involvement in the campaign, she said: "I can't answer that. My uncle is there in Matrit, in the muktar's house [head man]. You can ask him by yourself."

But Ms Obeid's spokesman said Eddie Obeid had organised