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Lebanon vote countdown
22/11/2007 18:04 - (SA)
Beirut - Foreign envoys and Lebanese leaders were engaged in make-or-break talks on Thursday on holding a presidential election as the clock ticked down to a Friday deadline with no breakthrough in sight.
The foreign ministers of France, Italy and Spain were shuttling between the bitterly divided parties in an ultimate bid to wrench an agreement on a compromise candidate before midnight Friday, when the term of Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud expires.
All indicators on Thursday, Lebanon's independence day, were that the Western-backed ruling majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition remained as divided as ever ahead of a scheduled vote in parliament to replace Lahoud.
Session will be cancelled
"They have no more cards to play and I don't think there will be a breakthrough," a high-level Lebanese official said. "We are at an impasse."
The official predicted that Friday's session for MPs to pick a successor to Lahoud before he steps down would be cancelled with the two sides agreeing to continue negotiations into next week or beyond.
The ruling coalition, which has 68 of the 127 seats in parliament, had previously vowed to proceed with a simple majority vote, but that option now appears unlikely for fear it could spark unrest, according to political officials.
The opposition for its part has threatened to set up a parallel government, a grim reminder of the end of the 1975-1990 civil war when two administrations battled it out.
Four previous sessions over the past two months have already been postponed, despite a host of foreign diplomats and politicians, including the UN chief and the head of the Arab League, scrambling to Beirut to mediate between the sides.
The crisis, the worst since the end of the civil war, is widely seen as an extension of the regional confrontation pitting the United States against Iran and Syria.
Hezbollah, considered a terrorist organisation by Washington, has said it would not settle for a president under US tutelage, while the Western-backed majority has balked at any candidate close to Syria and Iran.
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