Election a tinderbox for Lebanon

Failure to choose a presidential candidate this week could result in the formation of rival governments. Also at stake: regional leverage for Syria, Iran, and the US.

from the November 21, 2007 edition

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Writing in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat on Saturday, columnist Mustafa Zein said that regardless of the outcome of the presidential election, Lebanon's sectarian leaders "will not relinquish their foreign commitments, which are the source of their strength in confronting one another, in war or in peace."

"Unfortunately, Lebanon will remain an arena that is open to everybody," he wrote.

In a bid to break the impasse, France has persuaded Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, the influential patriarch of the Maronite church, to submit a list of candidates from which the rival factions could select a president. Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system decrees that the president must be a Maronite.

But neither camp is showing any sign of flexibility, to the evident frustration of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who is in Beirut to help hammer out a deal.

"I would like to know who has an interest in chaos, who has an interest in the elections not taking place, who has an interest in making it even more complicated for the life of all the Lebanese," he told reporters Monday.

The anti-Syrian March 14 bloc, which holds a slim parliamentary majority, has warned it will elect a president from within its own ranks if the opposition refuses a compromise candidate. The opposition, however, has said that it won't recognize a March 14 president and has hinted it could set up a rival government instead, a move which would result in tumult and possibly violence.

"So we face security threats. Fine. I don't think we live in a safe country anyway. And I don't think we should lose our constitutional rights because of threats," says Mosbah Ahdab, a March 14 parliamentarian. Mr. Ahdab is one of more than 40 members of the March 14 block holed up in a heavily guarded five-star hotel in central Beirut. Four of their colleagues have been assassinated since the last parliamentary election in 2005. Visitors pass through metal detectors and are escorted to meeting rooms by bodyguards.

Hizbullah ready to act if no deal is made

Sources close to Hizbullah say that the Shiite party has been making preparations in the event that no consensus is reached, placing its cadres on high alert and drawing up contingency plans to keep main roads open between the Hizbullah-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut and Shiite areas in the south and east of Lebanon.

Ali Mokdad, a member of Hizbullah's parliamentary bloc, says he remains hopeful that a deal can be struck before the end of the week, but warned the opposition's reaction to the election of a March 14 president would be different from past antigovernment street protests.

"It will be a time for political action. The opposition will decide exactly what to do when the time comes," he says.

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