New Lebanon president begins task of uniting nation

MILITARY bands and a guard of honour greeted President Michel Suleiman yesterday as he entered Lebanon’s presidential palace to begin the monumental task of uniting a wounded nation and reconciling rival political factions.

Suleiman, who was elected on Sunday, was greeted by staffers on a red carpet at the palace in hilly Baabda near Beirut, rather than by an outgoing president as is normally the custom. Lebanon has been without a head of state since November, when Emile Lahoud left office without a successor.

Suleiman’s election is the first step in the deal to end the crisis which erupted this month into the worst violence since Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.