Lebanon's presidential election was postponed for a ninth time Monday, to December 22, despite intense international efforts to convince rival parties to reach a deal and end a dangerous political vacuum.
"We're back to square one," Mustafa Alloush, a deputy with the majority, told AFP after parliament speaker Nabih Berri announced the latest delay. The decision came amid intense international efforts to convince Lebanon's pro- and anti-Syrian factions to proceed to a vote and avoid plunging the country into further chaos.
Lebanon has been without a president since Emile Lahoud stepped down at the end of his term with no elected successor on November 23.
The Western-backed ruling majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition, backed by Syria and Iran, have agreed in principle to elect army chief Michel Sleiman to replace Lahoud.
But they remain at odds on how to amend the constitution to allow a senior public servant to become president, on who would lead a new government and how many cabinet seats each camp would get. Christian leader Samir Geagea told AFP that he held little hope of a solution being reached by the next session Saturday unless the opposition accepted Sleiman's election unconditionally.
"Rumours of an impending deal yesterday were aimed at cooling off tension created by French and US pressure on Syria," he said. Hezbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan said his camp would not budge until "a comprehensive political agreement on how to amend the constitution to elect Sleiman."
"We want to agree now so as not to differ at the start of President Sleiman's term," he said. One note of optimisism, however, came from opposition MP Michel Murr who said a solution was on the horizon.
"Things are moving ahead. There could be an agreement between tonight and tomorrow," Murr said, adding that differences remained on the shape of the future government. "We need a balanced, just and representative government," he said.
Washington at the weekend dispatched one of its top envoys to the country to meet with the rival leaders and press them to end their stand-off, which marks the country's worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
"The United States believes that it is time now to elect a new president," said David Welch, the US assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs. "There is no reason for any further delay. France, Lebanon's former colonial power which has been at the forefront of international efforts to mediate the crisis, also warned that time was running out for a solution.
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