Amin Gemayel is desperately trying to get back into the Lebanese Parliament, 25 years after he signed a peace-treaty with Israel when he was President.

His self-proclaimed facist Phalange party has already called on the opposition not to put up a candidate in the August by-election (his Hariri-clan friends know all about one-party elections - the whole city of Beirut was uncontested two years ago).

And now he has described the vote as "a battle for Lebanon's existence".

Now, where have we heard that sentence before?