The real beneficiary of an opposition victory would not be Hezbollah but its main electoral partner, the Free Patriotic Movement, led by the retired Christian general Michel Aoun.
The CSU is the electoral partner of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the mainstream conservative party for the rest of Germany and the senior member of the national "grand coalition" government.
At least partly as a result of the popularity of that last initiative, Fidesz and its junior electoral partner, the Christian Democratic People's Party, swept to another commanding victory in the national parliamentary elections in April 2014, earning Orbán another term as prime minister.
India's once-warring Communist parties are now electoral allies and coalition partners.
Can this bruised and battered army, ridiculed for abandoning its promises on tuition fees, outmanoeuvred by its Tory partners over electoral reform, and struggling under a leader who went from national hero before the election to national hate figure after, really recover to its pre-election heights of 20% and more in the polls?
(My partner, an electoral geographer who wrote her dissertation on Russian elections, argued this line in my own kitchen).
Nino, his partner in electoral manipulation and fowl assassination, was at his side, smoking and sipping Montepulciano from a silver thermos.
Why Brussels isn't boring Reprints Related items George Bush at the UN: Confronting IraqSep 12th 2002Edmund Stoiber, the conservative challenger for chancellor, has been more nuanced, accusing his rival of sacrificing Germany's ties with its most important partner for electoral gain.
Now another coalition with the SPD is widely expected, after Mrs Merkel's pro-business Free Democrat (FDP) partners met with electoral disaster, failing to win a single seat.
In 2010, the Conservatives and the Ulster Unionists were partners in an electoral pact, and Mr Cameron harboured hopes Northern Ireland's "New Force" might contribute an MP to his Westminster team.
