Lebanon Postpones Vote on President

BEIRUT, Sept 25--Lebanon's deeply divided parliament failed to elect a new president on Tuesday and speaker Nabih Berri deferred the vote until October 23.

The opposition stayed away from the session to elect a successor to President Emile Lahoud, blocking the anti-Syrian majority from choosing a new head of state.

Parliament needs a two-thirds majority to elect a president in a first round of voting.

"Despite everything, we continue to seek constructive dialogue and practical discussion with the various opposition blocs to salvage the presidential election and save Lebanon from the danger of falling into a vacuum ... and internal division," said Farid Makari, deputy house speaker, reading a statement in the name of the governing anti-Syrian bloc known as March 14.

Thousands of Lebanese troops and police protected the assembly building in central Beirut where pro-government deputies arrived under armed escort from a heavily guarded seafront hotel where many had been staying.

The Western-backed March 14 alliance fears more assassinations to reduce its slim majority after last week's car bombing that killed Christian MP Antoine Ghanem.

Some opposition MPs went to parliament and mingled with their opponents but had no intention of attending an electoral session for lack of prior consensus on a new president.

Disputes over the election reflect deep fissures in Lebanon between factions which want to align the country with the West and those which favour close ties with Syria.

Two pro-government MPs walked into parliament carrying a red banner with pictures of Ghanem and five other anti-Syrian MPs slain in the past two years, including former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. "Don't boycott the nation," the banner read.

Despite the impasse over the election, Berri, an opposition leader, met March 14 leader Saad al-Hariri in his office for 15 minutes. They had not met for months.

"The climate is not as grim as everyone imagines," Berri said on Monday after talks with Maronite Christian Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir. "There will be a president for Lebanon before Nov. 24 with the consensus of all the Lebanese, God willing."

The March 14 bloc had hoped to elect one of its own members in the first presidential election since Syrian troops were forced to leave Lebanon in 2005 after Hariri's assassination.

Syria's Al-Baath newspaper said March 14's insistence on choosing the president meant that it was "pursuing its scheme for Lebanon to fall in the grip of US-Israeli projects".

The political crisis, Lebanon's worst since the civil war, spilled into street clashes in January that recalled the 1975-1990 conflict. Failure to agree on a president could result in two governments, which could spark new instability.