On June 8, when all votes are cast and counted between the glitzy urban quarters of Beirut and the dusty hamlets of the Bekaa valley, the Lebanese elections will have produced one certain winner: the local advertising industry. Despite a newly imposed cap on campaign spending, candidates have been falling over each other to plaster the billboards along the roads and highways of this miniscule country with their oversized likenesses and airy slogans. Crowded out by the politicians, some peddlers of more pedestrian seasonal merchandise have retaliated in kind, with a brand of cheap fruit juice poking fun at notorious practices of vote rigging by promising democracy "extra," thus drawing attention to its product by the same name, while the only locally produced beer brand declared itself "victorious for lack of competition" already three months ago -- true to the form of much of the electoral contest.

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