Lebanon Update
Writing by abuhatem on Sunday, 11 of November , 2007 at 5:53 pm
So alot has happened in Lebanon this weekend, the least of which is that, for the third time in a row (or is it fourth?), Presidential elections have been delayed until two days before Lahoud, the current President, must step down. Come on Berri and Sfeir, find someone already!
When it comes to foreign pressure, Russia has called for stability in Lebanon and urged the Syrians to stay out. And even Pope Benedict himself has commented on the matter saying, “this is a crucial passage, upon which depends the future of Lebanon and its institutions.”
Hezbollah’s leader Hasan Nasrallah has made the crisis even more explosive by recommending early parliamentary elections to diffuse the stalemate, and has stated that none will disarm his group.
And Cardinal Sfeir, the Lebanese Maronite religious leader who is supposed to find a peaceful solution to this crisis with speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri has again called the impasse a “threat to the existence of Lebanon.”
The key to the whole thing, the reason why Sfeir and the Pope are right, come at the end of a piece on the Reuters newswire today:
The anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, with 68 MPs in the 127-seat house, has threatened to go ahead on its own with a presidential vote if no consensus candidate is found.
Nasrallah warned that the opposition would not recognise a president unless he is elected by two-thirds of MPs.
“Any president elected by a simple majority… will not be recognised by te opposition, which would consider him to be an impostor,” said the Hezbollah leader.
Category: Lebanese Politics
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