"The elections results are already decided -- there is no competition, no candidates to chose," he said while out for his Sunday walk along the Corniche, Beirut's seaside boardwalk. He said he believed that the protests "were orchestrated, that a machine directed them. I don't know who was running it, but it was a machine."
Tajrine said he wasn't voting. He identified himself, reluctantly, as a Sunni.
"That you ask the question, that's the problem," he said.
While people bustled outside polls in Muslim neighborhoods, the streets were quiet in Christian areas. In Sodeco, a line of voters, many wearing Diesel jeans and designer sunglasses, formed outside the French Cultural Center, but they were French Lebanese voting on the European Union constitution.
"I'm more interested in this," said Tony Abouzeid, 31, who, as a resident of the Bekaa Valley, won't vote in the Lebanese elections until June 19. "This is a more normal election, no cheating."
Christian politicians allied with Hariri pleaded with voters to get out and vote, if only to give greater legitimacy to the new government. Outside the Tabaris Public School in the Ashrafieh neighborhood, Gebran Tueni, a Greek Orthodox candidate, urged Christians to resist calls by a maverick Christian leader, Michel Aoun, and others to boycott the elections.
"Don't consider these elections already over; these elections are a referendum on March 14 and you shouldn't consider them appointments," he said, referring to the date of the largest protests, which brought hundreds of thousands of people into Martyrs' Square in Beirut one month after Hariri's assassination, calling for the withdrawal of Syrian troops.
A few minutes later, instant messages from Tueni started popping up on local cell phones: "The battle is not over yet! To win, we need your massive voting on May 29!"
In Bashoura, a neighborhood with a large Shiite population, Nabila Rawass, 53, said she was concerned primarily about economic issues. She lamented the high unemployment rate that has driven many young people, including her own son, to seek work in other countries.
"I want national unity, stability and for my son to find work here, inshallah," or God willing, she said.
Outside a massive new mosque on Martyrs' Square, a few dozen people lingered around a bier laden with white flowers that marks Hariri's grave. The site has become an impromptu public shrine, flanked by huge pictures of Hariri and images of the protests.
Wael Mreysh, 25, had just voted for the first time, for Saad Hariri's list, and was visiting the burial site to pay his respects.
"He delivered the country from civil war," Mreysh said. Rafiq Hariri, a billionaire businessman who made a fortune through close economic ties with the Saudi royal family, was instrumental in rebuilding the downtown of war-ravaged Beirut. The mosque, which is still unfinished, was one of Hariri's projects, for which he is beloved by many and respected by others.
As the Lebanese struggled to harness the political momentum unleashed by Hariri's assassination, many lamented that voters and politicians had lapsed into old sectarian habits. But construction, at least, continued, and across the street from Hariri's grave a pile driver pounded away on a Sunday afternoon, preparing the ground for a new neighborhood of high-end housing.
Voters Cast Ballots in Lebanese Capital 
