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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Speaker postpones presidential vote to December 22 |
| 2007-12-18 |
| Lebanon’s Speaker Nabih Berri has once again postponed the election session . The new date is set for Saturday December 22 at noon time according to Mohamed Ballout, spokesman for the speaker . Today is the day that the Lebanese parliament was supposed to meet to elect General Michel Suleiman as the compromise candidate , but signs of hope for such a meeting faded by the minute as the clock approached noon time when few MPs showed up from the opposition The March 14 ruling majority said it planned to attend the session following an overnight deal struck with parliament speaker Nabih Berri. The deal calls for electing Suleiman as president without amending the constitution. This was the ninth attempt since September 25 , but the parliament failed each time to meet and exercise its constitutional duty . According to parliament sources Speaker Nabih Berri , one of the leaders of the Hezbollah led opposition met at 11:45 am with MP Walid Jumblatt, head of the Democratic Gathering Parliament bloc and at 12: 20 PM met with MP Saad Hariri , leader of the parliament majority . No details were available on the results of their talks , but judging from the postponement , the talks once again failed. As in all previously planned sessions , the majority was hopeful of a deal but not the opposition . The opposition is trying to extract as much gain as possible from the majority before committing to the election of Suleiman . In principle all rival parties have agreed to elect Sleiman, but they have been bickering on the procedure to amend article 49 of the constitution to allow a public servant to become president. The majority is insisting that the amendment should be done by the government in accordance with the constitution , but the opposition wants to bypass the government altogether because they consider it illegal , since all the Shiite ministers have resigned The rival parties also disagree on the make-up of the new government and on who would be appointed to the key positions after the president is elected . The opposition calls all these “ basket of understanding “ , but the majority calls it blackmail. The Christians ( with the exception of Hezbollah ally General Michel Aoun ) are furious about the demands of the opposition. They claim that these demands will undermine the role of the president who should be a Christian Maronite , since the most important function of the new president is to form a new government . According to parliament majority sources, Syria is opposed to the election of a new president and are pressuring their allies to refrain from accepting any deal that will end the current impasse. Syria wants to prove to the world that Lebanon cannot govern itself and therefore ( Syria) should return to Lebanon. |
| Posted by:Fred |