Lebanon puts off electing president as opposition skips parliament vote - Haaretz

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Last update - 10:21 25/09/2007

Lebanon puts off electing president as opposition skips parliament vote

By News Agencies

Lebanon's parliament on Tuesday agreed to postpone its session to elect a new president to October 23 on Tuesday for lack of a two-thirds quorum, Speaker Nabih Berri said in a statement.

The Hezbollah-led opposition boycotted the session, blocking the anti-Syrian majority from choosing a new head of state to succeed current President Emile Lahoud.

Police and army troops sealed off downtown Beirut earlier Tuesday and escorted lawmakers to the parliament to elect a new president in a vote shadowed by the assassination of an anti-Syrian last week.

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The security dragnet by several thousand soldiers and policemen was aimed at allowing anti-Syrian lawmakers from the parliamentary majority to move safely from a nearby heavily guarded hotel where they had taken refuge fearing assassination.

Fears of an attack were high after the slaying Wednesday of MP Antoine Ghanem. It fueled accusations by government supporters that Syria is targeting members of the ruling coalition, a claim denied by Damascus.

The attempt to choose a successor to Lahoud before he steps down on November 24 was expected to be a struggle between the anti-Syrian
government coalition, led by U.S.-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, and the opposition, led by Syria's and Iran's ally Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim militant group.

The ruling coalition is eager to install one of its own to replace the pro-Syrian Lahoud, but the opposition has vowed to prevent that from happening.

Eleven declared or undeclared candidates are running for the post, three of them members of the pro-government camp and one from the opposition.

All 68 legislators from the pro-government majority were going to Parliament on Tuesday, said lawmaker Fuad Saad, a supporter of the ruling coalition. But he added the chances of an election Tuesday were very faint, saying the gathering Tuesday would be turned into one for consultations between the two camps.

"We are going to show our wish to apply the constitution, elect a president and to reject a [power] vacuum," Saad told the privately owned Voice of Lebanon radio station on Tuesday.

The opposition - with 57 members - was expected to deny the 128-member legislature a two-thirds quorum by having lawmakers stay away from the building or in their offices rather than joining the session in the chamber. Two legislators have declared they were with neither side on the presidential issue.

The local media said Berri was likely to set another session after the Islamic Eid al-Fitr holiday, which ends the holy month of Ramadan in mid-October, to allow both sides to try to reach a compromise.

Berri, after meeting Monday with Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, the influential spiritual head of the Maronite Catholic minority, expressed optimism a consensus would be reached on a president. Under Lebanon's sectarian-based political system, the president must be a Maronite.

Government supporters accuse Syria of seeking to end the ruling coalition's small majority in parliament by killing off lawmakers. They warn of a new war by Syria to undermine Lebanon.

The Lebanese opposition says the Ghanem assassination was intended to scuttle attempts to reach a compromise on the presidency.

Syria has denied any involvement in the car bombing of Ghanem on a Beirut street or in seven previous assassinations since 2005, including that of Hariri.

Under a security plan that began Tuesday morning, the downtown area around parliament was sealed off to unauthorized vehicle traffic, restaurants were closed and traffic diverted to other roads. Security forces were to ferry legislators between the legislature and the hotel.

The ruling coalition has threatened to just elect a president from their own ranks with a simple majority and end one of the last vestiges of Damascus' political control. Hezbollah and its allies have warned that they would not recognize a candidate elected in their absence and could elect a rival president.

If the parliament cannot elect a president by November 24, Siniora and his Cabinet would automatically take on executive powers. Some in the opposition have threatened that this could lead them to back another government they are urging Lahoud to appoint before he leaves office.

That could result in two rival administrations, as occurred in the last two years of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, when army units loyal to two governments fought it out.

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