Lebanon's leaders are still staking out their territory in the next government, and Ramadan may bring them another reprieve, Lucy Fielder reports in Beirut As Lebanon enters its ninth week of haggling over cabinet positions, the holy month of Ramadan has come around again, raising the prospect of another month's delay before the new government is formed. It has become a tradition for Lebanon's ever-generous leaders to unveil some gift -- be it another interminable round of dialogue or a weak government that has been several months in the making -- to a grateful public at Eid, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan. "At first people said there was a period of tolerance, but now we've entered a period of stalling, lies and playing for time," said Georges Nassif, a columnist at anti- Syrian daily An-Nahar. Part of the problem, he explained, is that there is no constitutional time limit after which the president must hold new consultations and start the process over again. In a country ever more paralysed by power struggles within a clique of sectarian leaders, such delays are increasingly inevitable. President Michel Suleiman, a consensus head of state brought in by the Doha agreement that ended fighting between the Hizbullah-led opposition and the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority last May, has been pushing for this law to be changed, which can only happen once a government is in place. Nassif believes the advent of Ramadan this weekend makes it likely negotiations will drag on for another month. Political deadlock has been a feature of post-war Lebanon since the days of wrangling between president Emile Lahoud and prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri in the final few years before his assassination in 2005. Since the Syrians left in the middle of that year, the clashes inherent in the Lebanese sectarian system have become ever more apparent. "What we're seeing is a result of the double-tie in the Lebanese constitution. Lebanon looks like a majoritarian system but at the same time it is consociational," said Fawwaz Traboulsi, a historian and politics professor at the American University of Beirut. On the one hand, the bloc commanding a parliamentary majority can form a government. But at the same time, the constitution stipulates that all sects be fairly represented. So although Sunni Future Movement leader Saad Al-Hariri has led the parliamentary majority for the past four years, the opposition, led by Shia Hizbullah and also comprising the secular Shia Amal Movement, have argued that their sect, Lebanon's largest, is insufficiently represented and should have clout in the government to reflect its numbers on the ground, regardless of votes. Their demand for the "blocking third" was motivated by a desire to stop any political attempt to wrest Hizbullah's weapons. "Both arguments are constitutional," Traboulsi said. "In the past few years the opposition has pushed that logic so much that had they won the election, the results would have been practically the same -- a coalition government." National unity governments are set to become a fixture in Lebanon, in the absence of reform of its sectarian system that would allow platform-based parties to flourish. In the 7 June elections, Al-Hariri and his allies again won a parliamentary majority, defying widespread predictions of a win for the opposition. But his main ally, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, this month renounced the March 14 coalition he spearheaded with Al-Hariri. "Walid betted on the wrong horse," Traboulsi said, arguing that he led two "coup attempts" expecting full US backing; one after Al-Hariri's killing in 2005 and one last May, when he spurred the government to issue two decisions to clamp down on Hizbullah's intelligence and communications networks, prompting a military response that brought Lebanon to the brink of civil war. "Now he is trying to accept defeat and is afraid of being crushed by the three major sects competing for power in Lebanon. He fears his sect being reduced to what the Druze really are -- sect number five." Al-Hariri, the inexperienced prime minister designate, now finds himself in a bind, despite Jumblatt's ambiguous insistence that he remains with the majority, just not the movement it represents. Jumblatt's pronouncement came just after the formula of 15-10-5 had been settled on for splitting seats between the majority, the opposition and the president respectively. Now Jumblatt has made clear that although he will take the three seats reserved for his sect out of the 15 for the majority, he is politically moving away from the anti-Syrians and towards the centre. Among the president's share, at least one key minister is expected to be close to the opposition in order to appease Hizbullah without giving in to its demand for its alliance to have veto power, or a third plus one of cabinet seats. Hizbullah's Christian ally Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), has demanded cabinet representation in line with his party's status as the most popular among Christians, leading to March 14 accusations that he is the main force blocking the negotiations. His opponents have particularly taken issue with his call for his son-in-law, Gebran Bassil, to retain the Telecommunications Ministry, despite having lost his seat in the elections, and for the FPM to take the Interior Ministry, which was widely expected to remain with popular incumbent Ziad Baroud as part of the president's share. Aoun also argued this week that the agreed division of cabinet seats should be revised, raising the prospect of even more protracted negotiations. "Jumblatt blew the 15-10-5 formula. No one holds a majority and now we have moved to the 12-10-5-3 make-up," he said, referring to Jumblatt's share of three seats. One blessing is that as their leaders squabble, the Lebanese are basking in the rare peace of a quiet summer. Nassif said the atmosphere of calm was a sign that regional foes Syria and Saudi Arabia were still trying to achieve some sort of rapprochement. Since Syria supports the opposition and is allied to Iran, and Saudi Arabia backs Al-Hariri and March 14 generally, relations between the two Arab countries have a strong impact on Lebanon. "There has been no divorce between Syria and Saudi Arabia, and the evidence is that relations between Al-Hariri and Hizbullah are good at the moment, even if the government hasn't been formed yet," Nassif said. "But it doesn't appear that the Saudi-Syrian agreement succeeded. There appear to be difficulties, though it is not clear of what type."
