Time is running out for Lebanon's government and opposition to step back from the brink before flash-point presidential elections, Lucy Fielder reports After three years of political paralysis, Lebanon's rival factions have about a month to agree on a candidate to replace President Emile Lahoud. A military coup or parallel governments reminiscent of the civil war days may be the alternative. The ruling US- and Saudi-backed 14 March bloc views the Maronite presidency as a last battle against Syrian influence. The three-year extension of Lahoud's term by Syrian coercion in September 2004 plunged a teetering country headlong into the political abyss. Lahoud has looked lonely in Baabda Palace since Syrian troops pulled out after the former prime minister Rafiq Al-Hariri's assassination in February 2005. Lebanon's first post-war election without Syrian tutelage is expected on 25 September and Lahoud's term ends in late November. Lahoud has threatened to use his powers if no compromise is found, suggesting he might stay put or hand power over to the army. Parliament appoints the president by an agreed convention. Leading members of 14 March, which holds a majority of parliament seats, have stated the president must come from their ranks and have threatened to choose one by simple majority if the constitutional two- thirds quorum is elusive. This proposal has met opposition even among its own MPs. Al-Akhbar quoted a leaked diplomatic report last week as saying US Under- Secretary of State for Near East Affairs David Welch as saying Washington wanted a president "from the team that supports our policies in the region" and that it would accept a vote by simple majority as threatened by 14 March. Washington has not denied the report. The opposition led by Hizbullah has made it clear it would not legitimise such a vote and sees the pro-US bloc as having reneged on promises to allow a national unity government after attaining its goal of an international tribunal into Hariri's killing. "I think it's highly likely they'll go ahead with the elections anyway, which is going to be a major provocation to the opposition," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East Centre in Beirut. Sheikh Naim Qasem, deputy secretary- general of Hizbullah, told Al-Hayat the government of Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora could not stay on if no president were elected. "The opposition might find itself obligated to form a government that would fill in the governmental vacuum," he said, adding that the opposition was "serious in looking for other solutions for the problem if no agreement is reached about the national unity government." In that event, Saad-Ghorayeb said, either Lahoud would hand power over to army chief Michel Suleiman -- effectively a military coup -- or the opposition would announce a rival government. At heart is a broader struggle between US plans to disarm the Iranian-backed Hizbullah after Israel failed to do so in last summer's war and the Shia guerrillas' determination to retain "the weapons of resistance". At the peak of the civil war in 1988, President Amin Gemayel left office with no successor and appointed Christian army chief Michel Aoun to the traditionally Sunni premiership. In protest, the retired Sunni prime minister, Selim Al-Hoss returned to set up a rival government. "A rival government does spell conflict at some point, it's highly destabilising," Saad-Ghorayeb said. Aoun is so far the only opposition candidate for president, who is always a Maronite under Lebanon's religious- based system. In early August he narrowly won a by-election seen as a bellwether for the presidency and he remains the most popular Christian figure. But his alliance with Syrian- and Iranian-backed Hizbullah makes him anathema to 14 March. Several 14 March MPs -- Boutros Harb, Nassib Lahoud and Robert Ghanem -- have announced their intention to stand. "This is the first time in many years that the Lebanese will be able to elect their president themselves," Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea told reporters after convening a meeting of 14 March Christians. Days before the meeting, Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir dropped his objection to amending the constitution to allow a state employee to stand, which would pave the way for the only prominent Maronites seen as neutral -- Boutros Harb, Nassib Lahoud and Robert Ghanem Suleiman or Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh. "And if the army commander, as president, can save the country, he is most welcome," Sfeir told the leftist daily As-Safir. But the traditional Maronite kingmaker looks marginalised. 14 March Christians have agreed only on rejecting the amendment. Two non-Christian powerhouses lead Lebanon's opposing factions: Saad Al-Hariri's Sunni Future movement and Hizbullah. "The patriarch's quite worried about the presidency and trying to strike a balance. On the one hand he wants to ensure the presidency remains a strong and sturdy institution for the Maronites; on the other hand, because of his pro-US political agenda, he's undermining the presidency by siding with 14 March," Saad- Ghorayeb said. The Americans "have put all their eggs in the Sunni basket", she commented, and even former colonial power France, with its centuries-old links to the Maronites, is showing little interest in ensuring a strong Christian president. Nationalist fervour runs high for the army, locked in a three-month-old battle with Sunni militants in the northern Nahr El-Bared Palestinian refugee camp. But 14 March turned against Suleiman a few weeks ago after he contradicted their allegations of Syrian backing for the Fatah Al-Islam radicals. "This organisation is not linked to Syrian intelligence, nor is it backed up by official Lebanese circles. It is a branch of Al-Qaeda which had planned to use Lebanon and the Palestinian camps as a safe haven to launch its operations in Lebanon and abroad," Suleiman said. Although his statement also cleared Saad Hariri's camp of allegations of backing Fatah Al-Islam, and corroborated earlier statements by the defence minister, it drew fury. "Do the Lebanese army, the Lebanese martyrs or those who believe they represent them want us to believe that the acquittal granted by the commander of the army to the Syrian regime is a token of the willingness to twin the expected military rule in Lebanon with the rule that has been a burden on the Syrian people since 1949?" wrote Ghassan Tueni, owner of pro-government An-Nahar newspaper and another potential presidential candidate. "Let the army return to its barracks." "They are unable to figure Suleiman out, they don't really see him as part of 14 March. He's too neutral and seen as having contacts with the Syrians," said Oussama Safa, head of the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies. Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri has promised to unveil an initiative soon to resolve the crisis, but it is unclear whether he has any new carrots to offer. French envoy Jean Claude Cousseran left Beirut empty-handed this week. Arab League Secretary- General Amr Moussa is believed to be working to get regional backers together on Lebanon. 14 March has been weakened by Hizbullah's campaign against it since last December and has no choice but compromise, Safa said. "The best they can hope for is a candidate they can live with who is also amenable to the opposition."
