Lebanese leaders pledge to hold election despite bombing

Lebanese leaders today pledged to press ahead with a divisive election for president, to be held in Parliament in the coming days, despite the car bombing assassination of an anti-Syrian MP.

The powerful bomb Wednesday killed Antoine Ghanem, an anti-Syria MP, and six others in a Christian neighbourhood of Beirut – and threatened to derail efforts to bring the country’s rival parties together to agree on a head of state ahead of time, before voting is set to begin next week.

At least 67 were wounded in the explosion, which severely damaged buildings and set cars ablaze during rush hour on a busy street in the Sin el-Fil neighbourhood.

Ghanem, 64, a member of the Christian Phalange party, had returned from refuge abroad only two days earlier. He was the eighth anti-Syria figure and fourth governing coalition lawmaker to be assassinated in less than three years.

Coalition members blamed Syria for the death, but Damascus denied involvement, as it has for the previous seven assassinations, including the 2005 bombing death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora asked the United Nations secretary-general in a letter to add the Ghanem assassination to an international probe into Hariri’s slaying and other political crimes in Lebanon.

Schools, universities and banks across the country as well as many businesses in Christian areas of Beirut and in the Mount Lebanon region north of the capital were closed Thursday for a day of mourning and to observe a strike called by the Phalange Party. A funeral was to be held tomorrow.

Saniora pledged that Lebanon would not be cowed by the assassination and would press ahead to pick a president.

“The hand of terror will not win and will not succeed in subduing us and silencing us,” he said in a statement late Wednesday carried by the official news agency. “The Lebanese will not retreat and will have a new president elected by lawmakers, no matter how big the conspiracy was.”

Other anti-Syrian leaders also vowed not to back down, and the majority coalition planned a meeting later Thursday to come up with a strategy.

“We will not accept a power vacuum, regardless of the reasons,” vowed Phalange leader Karim Pakradouni.

President Emile Lahoud, an ally of Syria, is due to step down from the presidency Nov. 24, and government supporters see the vote as a chance to put one of their own in the post by a simple majority vote of 65.

Despite yesterday’s killings, they still have that majority to keep the government from falling. But a simple majority to elect a president was uncertain after four pro-government members said they will not vote for a president under the formula of half-plus-one, calling it a recipe for the break-up of the country.

The militant group Hezbollah and its allies in the pro-Syrian opposition also vow to block any candidate they do not approve. They can do so by boycotting the vote, preventing the needed two-thirds quorum of 85 votes.

Many Lebanese fear the division over the presidency could lead to the creation of two rival governments – a grim prospect for Lebanon, which suffered through a bloody civil war from 1975 to 1990.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, speaking to the leading An-Nahar newspaper, said he will go ahead with Tuesday’s session to begin the process of electing a president.

“I am going to the session on Tuesday because we don’t want the criminals’ goals to be met,” said Berri, a leading member of the opposition.

Lahoud also implied that Ghanem’s death was meant to undermine the presidential vote, saying “it is no coincidence that whenever there are positive signs” that someone is killed.

But lawmaker Saad Hariri blamed the Syrian president.

“I have never seen a more cowardly regime than that of Bashar Assad’s,” said Hariri, who replaced his father, the assassinated ex-premier, as head of the anti-Syria forces who form the slim majority in Parliament.

The US-backed Saniora has been mired in a power struggle with the opposition, led by the Syrian-allied Hezbollah.

Government supporters accuse Syria of seeking to end Saniora’s small majority in Parliament by killing off MPs in his coalition, which now holds 68 seats to the opposition’s 59.

After the assassination of MP Walid Eido in June, many majority legislators left the country to spend the summer abroad in safety, while those who stayed took extra security.

Ghanem had returned only Monday from the United Arab Emirates, where he took refuge for two months. He was travelling in a car with regular licence plates, his blue Parliament plate hidden in the trunk, apparently as a security measure.

Antoine Andraos, another colleague, said Ghanem had called him earlier in the day asking for a bullet-proof car, a TV station linked to Hariri reported.

Security officials yesterday said a landmark hotel near the Parliament building in downtown Beirut has been booked to house legislators in the governing majority so they can be better protected during the 60-day presidential election process.

The US has accused Syria of trying to undermine Lebanon’s government, but has stopped short of tying the Damascus regime to the political killings.