Lebanese parliament member Saad Hariri, the son and political heir of slain former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, told President Bush and other U.S. officials yesterday that he feared neighboring Syria was still determined to obstruct Lebanon's upcoming presidential election and destabilize the region."In the meantime, there is a killing machine that has started killing the majority and it has not stopped," Hariri said in an interview, referring to a string of assassinations of anti-Syrian Lebanese legislators. "We believe that somehow, that the Syrian regime will stop the elections from happening."
He added: "We are not afraid of a compromise. We are afraid there won't be presidential elections."
"At the end of the day, what the Syrians want is terrorism, and what we want is democracy," he said. "If we do not succeed as a moderate democracy in the region, there will only be terrorism and extremist regimes like Syria will flourish."
At a briefing with Washington Post columnists and reporters, Hariri, 37, said he was seriously engaged in dialogue with Nabih Berri, Lebanon's parliament speaker and an interlocutor for the opposition to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government, to find a way out of the current political impasse. The country of about 4 million people, which he described as a moderate democracy, is eager to extricate itself from regional strains, he said.
Hariri asserted that the armed Hezbollah movement, backed by Syria and Iran, was now "in a corner" politically despite the popularity it achieved last year after its 33-day war with Israeli forces inside Lebanon.
Lebanon's Syrian-backed opposition is composed of Shiite Muslim officials and legislators loyal to Berri's Amal party and Hezbollah, as well as Christian followers of Michel Aoun, a former general with presidential aspirations. The opposition has boycotted the government and parliament for 10 months, virtually paralyzing the country's institutions.
Under the constitution, Lebanon's president, traditionally a Maronite Christian, has to be elected within the next seven weeks by the unicameral legislature. Failure to reach a quorum of two-thirds of the 128-seat legislature for a first round of balloting would allow legislators to come together at another location and elect a president with a majority of 65 votes. However, six legislators loyal to Hariri's bloc have been killed in a spate of assassinations.
Hariri vowed that Lebanon would not end up with a candidate chosen by Syria, but one from the coalition of Christians, Muslims and Druze known as the March 14 group.
"We believe we are a majority, we have a big say and we have the right to choose our new president," Hariri said.
He said he was content to lead the majority bloc and had no ambitions to become Lebanon's next prime minister, praising Siniora as a statesman at home and abroad.
"I am quite happy where I am," he said. "I have great respect for Prime Minister Siniora. My political ambition is not to be a prime minister; my political ambition is to have Lebanon reach a safer haven."