Few are prepared to predict who will win Sunday's poll -- the current parliamentary majority backed by the West and oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia, or the Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Iran and Syria. But analysts agree that no matter how far apart Lebanon's political rivals are, they stand united on one issue  -- preserving the stability of the economy.

"Both parties believe in the same fundamentals," said Fadoie Mansour, director of the Centre d'Etudes Bancaires, a private think-tank. "Both are capitalists," she said. "Nothing will change. Lebanon has a liberal economy and it will remain so whether the opposition wins or the majority."

For Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at the Byblos Bank Group, a leading private institution, Lebanon's monetary authorities will defend economic stability at all costs.. "The monetary authorities are prepared for any eventuality, not only for who wins the majority in parliament, but also for what will happen later when the new government is formed," Ghobril said.

Concerns have been running high in Lebanon that a victory for Hezbollah and its allies, who include Christians who have accused the majority of corruption, could rock the economy and trigger a reduction in foreign aid. The United States has warned that a victory for Hezbollah, which it continues to blacklist as a terror group, could affect the future of its military aid to Beirut. Ghobril said that concerns about a Hezbollah win were "legitimate" but stressed that he did not expect "that on Monday morning, we are going to wake up and see people transferring their money out of the country." He also believes that Hezbollah -- which is fielding 11 candidates in Sunday's election -- does not have much "margin of manoeuvre" and must tackle key problems, such as debt reduction, and forge ahead with delayed reforms.

Ghobril and Mansour both said that the stablility of the Lebanese pound, which has been pegged to the dollar at around 1,500 ever since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war, was key to the health of economy.  "The stability of the currency is a national issue, not a political one," Ghobril said. Lebanon has a market-based economy famous for its private banking sector which has earned the tiny Mediterranean country the monicker of "Switzerland of the Middle East."

But the country has been struggling with a 47-billion-dollar public debt and growth projections for this year have been cut from five percent to three. The International Monetary Fund said in March that the economy "has so far shown remarkable resilience in the face of the unfolding global finncial crisis." It paid tribute to "prudent macroeconomic and financial policies in recent years," notably an interest rate that has supported deposit inflows and a build-up of international reserves. According to the World Bank, "deposit inflows to Lebanese commercial banks increased by 3.7 percent (2.7 billion dollars) between August 2008 and January 2009."

Ghobril said: "Whoever is in power must work to maintain confidence in the banking sector. This is our main asset." It is also vital to "reassure the international community, with more than programmes that look nice on paper," he added.

In January 2007, international donors gathered in Paris pledged 7.6 billion dollars in aid for Lebanon on condition that the government carry out reforms in such money-draining institutions as the electricity department. Last November, the IMF awarded Lebanon 37.6 million dollars in new financing on top of 76.7 million dollars in emergency funding agreed after the devastating 2006 war with Israel.