LEBANON:Lebanon faced a political vacuum last night after rival politicians failed again to elect a successor to pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud hours before he was due to step down, writes Lucy Fielderin Beirut.
As the Baabda presidential palace stood empty for the first time in the country's history, Mr Lahoud, whose mandate expired at midnight, announced he would step down as scheduled, quashing fears he would appoint a rival government, a move that could instigate a civil war. The president ordered the army to take control of security.
Divided MPs failed to appoint Mr Lahoud yesterday for the fifth time and the vote was delayed for a week.
Prime minister Fouad al-Seniora's cabinet was expected to assume caretaker executive powers at midnight.
A senior source from the opposition said it was considering how to oppose Mr Seniora's authority, as it has since all of his Shia ministers and one allied Christian resigned a year ago, without destabilising the country.
The extension of Mr Lahoud's term three years ago under Syrian pressure marked the start of a political crisis pitting a US-backed anti-Syrian movement, now in power, against opponents backed by Tehran and Damascus.
The "threat of a state of emergency" existed, Mr Lahoud said in a statement. He entrusted the army with "the authority to maintain security". However, analysts said the army had long assumed that role.
An army source confirmed that little would change on streets already bristling with soldiers and armoured personnel carriers, since it was already in a heightened state of readiness. But curfews and emergency measures are expected if the heightened tension ignites sectarian clashes.
Soldiers have guarded major junctions and public buildings since the opposition began a protest in the centre of Beirut last December. This week, 2,500 extra soldiers boosted the number deployed on Lebanese streets to 6,000.
Extra checkpoints stopped cars on the seafront and the edges of the capital. Soldiers patrolled Beirut, thronging mixed areas that saw sectarian street-fights in January.
Commandos in red berets guarded the street descending to the plush seaside Phoenicia Hotel, where western-backed anti-Syrian MPs are sheltering. A string of attacks has killed eight anti-Syrian journalists and MPs over the past three years.
Beirut's pavements and shops emptied early and many parents kept their children home from school.
Parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri postponed the presidential election for the fifth time yesterday until Friday, raising uncertainty but also hope that agreement was possible between US-backed government loyalists and an opposition led by Iranian and Syrian-backed Hizbullah.
Opposition MPs stayed outside the chamber to prevent the necessary two-thirds quorum on the grounds that no candidate had been agreed beforehand. It argues that Lebanon's fragile political system is based upon consensus between its diverse sects.
"I think we're going to see a period of deterioration. The country will be much more vulnerable and even political leaders may lose control of the streets," the opposition source said. "There are no more rules and restraints." Constitutional expert Ziad Baroud said the army would keep the peace while the government would take care only of daily administrative duties. "If this only goes on a week and we have a president elected on the 30th, it's not a big issue, the opposition has anyway considered the government illegitimate for a year," he said.
Hope of a solution glimmered amid Friday's tensions, with politicians on both sides speaking of consensus. Usually outspoken Druze leader Walid Jumblatt met Mr Berri, who represents the opposition, and ruled out government loyalists picking a president by simple majority, instead of the required two-thirds of votes, as he and others had threatened.
Not only was Mr Jumblatt formerly a hardline proponent of such an election, which would have been taken for an escalation by the opposition, but he is seen as a weather-vane, reading the domestic and international mood and adjusting course accordingly.
"These are reflections of changes in US policy," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb of the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East centre in Beirut. "It's a significant departure from his previous statements and we know that he's the US's mouthpiece." With that much-feared option ruled out, opposition is in turn less likely to escalate, she said.
Ms Saad-Ghorayeb said a flurry of diplomatic activity that France has spearheaded over the past few weeks suggested a willingness to accept compromise on the part of Washington, which accuses Syria of meddling in Lebanon's affairs and has been pressing for a president explicitly committed to disarming Hizbullah.
Critics say that would be a recipe for civil war, since Hizbullah, Lebanon's most powerful party, and its backers in Tehran would reject any such candidate.
Washington urged all sides to keep working for a compromise and the army to keep law and order. "The United States Government commends Lebanon's armed forces and security services for their stated commitment to ensuring law and order during this interim period, and we urge all Lebanese political groups to do their part to maintain calm and promote security for Lebanon's citizens," state department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Any consensus candidate is likely to be one who expresses commitment to UN resolutions but is vague about the specifics of disarmament.