Prior to the 2005 parliamentary elections, Michel Aoun returned from exile in France, where he fled the Syrian regime in 1990 following an unsuccessful mutiny, and his party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), won most of the country’s Christian votes. However, it was the March 14 Alliance, led by Saad Hariri, Rafik Hariri's son, that received the overall parliamentary majority. Things immediately got more complicated as Aoun's FPM signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Hezbollah only nine months after the elections, marking the party’s first step towards joining the March 8 Alliance.