Region | Lebanon
Lebanon president vote delayed again
Lebanon's political stalemate deepens, threatening further instability as Tuesday's presidential vote is delayed for the eighth time.
- Gulf News Report
- Published: 23:21 December 10, 2007
- Image Credit: Reuters
- The Lebanese Parliament is due to convene on Tuesday in an eighth attempt to elect a president - a post vacant since November 23 when the term of Emile Lahoud expired.
Dubai: Lebanon's political stalemate deepened, threatening further instability as Tuesday's presidential vote was delayed for the eighth time.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri announced the latest delay of the election, which has repeatedly been put off since September 25 by differences between political parties.
Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun told reporters earlier on Monday that he feared the election would not take place before next month, while a senior political source had cited progress towards a deal.
Blaming "foreign intervention," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who led failed diplomatic efforts to reach a deal, on Monday said the election of Army Chief General Michel Sulaiman as president faces "difficulties".
But he told French television he hoped a new president would be elected "before year-end."
Parliament convened on Tuesday in an eighth failed attempt to elect a president, a post vacant since November 23 when the term of Emile Lahoud expired.
The rival camps, the ruling majority backed by the West and its Hezbollah-led opponents, agreed last week on Sulaiman as a consensus candidate for the post.
But differences over how to amend an article in the constitution that bans a serving public servant from running for office have delayed Sulaiman's confirmation.
The standoff is Lebanon's worst internal crisis since the end of its 1975-1990 civil war and is widely seen as an extension of the regional confrontation pitting the United States against Syria and Iran.
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