No 'presidential polls unless crisis is resolved'

Beirut/New York: Presidential elections cannot be held in Lebanon until a solution is reached to the six-month old political crisis between the Hezbollah-led opposition and the ruling anti-Syrian majority, a senior Hezbollah figure said.

The term of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, extended at the behest of Damascus in 2004, expires in November.

Since last year, the country has been locked in a standoff over opposition demands for greater power and its rejection of the government's calls for an international tribunal to try suspects for the killing of ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Mohammad Fneish, a former Hezbollah minister, told Al Hayat daily in an interview published yesterday that rival parties had to find an agreeable government formation.

Foreign agendas

"It is not feasible that this [presidential elections] happens in the midst of the current political divisions and while there is a party [ruling coalition] that is resorting to monopolising power and getting strength from external support," he said referring to US support of Siniora's government.

Fneish, who along with other pro-Syrian ministers resigned from cabinet last November in protest against Siniora's refusal to give the opposition a greater say in government, added:

"If there is no real consensus on partnership, on the political future of the country and on the identity of the president, the opposition will not allow this faction [ruling coalition] from ruling the country...," he added.

The rival camps accuse each other of working to foreign agendas to the detriment of Lebanon. Hezbollah describes the cabinet as a US puppet while the governing coalition says the opposition takes orders from Iran and Syria.

Lahoud has said he will not hand over his authorities to the current government, a procedural step towards the election of a new head of state. He might instead appoint a new government, leaving Lebanon with two cabinets.

Meanwhile, the United States, France and Britain circulated a UN resolution on Thursday that would unilaterally establish a tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 murder of a former Lebanese premier and 22 others.

The draft resolution, distributed to the UN Security Council, asks the 15 members to approve an earlier agreement of draft statutes for the court that the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora signed in November 2006.

Political impasse

Siniora on Monday asked the Security Council to help break the political impasse in Beirut over the creation of the court by adopting a binding resolution.

But he is opposed by Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, who warned on Tuesday that the tribunal's creation could lead to violence in Lebanon, which is undergoing its worst political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

France's UN ambassador, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, said the measure "was aimed at helping the Lebanese find a way out of the current dead end."

He said he hoped the resolution would be adopted by the end of the month. The measure invokes Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which would make the creation of the court mandatory.