AMERICAN LEBANESE COORDINATION COUNCIL

A statement issued by the parliament secretary general said that parliament speaker Nabih Berri decided to postpone Saturday’s session to elect a new president until Saturday, jan 12.

But the statement issued by the office of Berri, a pillar of the opposition, insisted there was no need to amend the constitution to elect Suleiman, citing Article 74 of the Lebanese constitution.

According to the statement, this stipulates that “in case of a presidential vacancy… parliament meets immediately to elect a new president, which excludes the (need for) amendment”

Parliament has failed to elect a president because the opposition, led by the militant Hizbollah group, has boycotted sessions, preventing a two-thirds quorum. The post has been empty since pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud’s term ended Nov. 23, plunging the country into the worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.

Lawmakers on both sides have agreed to back Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman as a compromise candidate, but parliament must first amend the constitution to allow a sitting military chief to become president.

This process has been complicated by the opposition’s demand for a new unity government that would give it veto power over major decisions.

The majority has rejected the opposition’s conditions, saying the shape of the next government could be discussed only after the presidential vote.

We did not agree on the mechanism of the necessary constitutional amendment and we did not reach any political settlement as there were not even negotiations this week” between the two feuding parties, Ibrahim Kanaan of the Free Patriotic Movement of opposition leader Michel Aoun told AFP.

A Hizbollah lawmaker said there won’t be a presidential election before the ruling coalition agreed to “a comprehensive political agreement” with the opposition, including guarantees on veto power in any new Cabinet.

“There is no possibility of holding the presidential election in Lebanon without an agreement on the formation of a national unity government,” Hizbollah legislator Hussein al-Haj Hassan said in a statement.

Christian opposition lawmaker Nabil Nicola also linked the presidential election to a political accord with the pro-government faction.

“There won’t be a (parliament) session tomorrow to elect a president until the usurpers of power return to their senses and to reconciliation,” Nicola said in a television interview Friday.

Nicola is part of a 23-member parliamentary bloc headed by Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun and allied to Hizbollah.

Christian lawmaker Antoine Zahra, from the majority bloc, said Saturday’s parliament session will not be held “because Speaker Berri and other opposition leaders have not yet received the green light from the Syrian and Iranian regimes to hold the election.”

The ruling coalition has accused the opposition of obstructing the presidential vote under orders from Syria and Iran, which back Hezbollah. In turn, the opposition claims pro-government groups in the parliament majority follow U.S. policies. (AP-AFP)