Hezbollah's man wins key Lebanon power battle

Iranian-supporting Hezbollah’s choice for Lebanon’s next prime minister won parliamentary support today, capping the group’s steady rise in power and sparking street riots by opponents.

Billionaire businessman and former premier Najib Mikati won a majority in two days of voting, defeating Western-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

The president will now ask Mr Mikati to try to form a new government that could be controlled by Hezbollah and its allies and give the group an unprecedented level of political power in Lebanon.

Hezbollah has grown over the past few decades from a resistance group fighting Israel to Lebanon’s most powerful military and political force.

The events of the past few days drew warnings from the US that its support for Lebanon could be in jeopardy, demonstrating the risks of international isolation if Hezbollah pushes its power too far.

Hezbollah’s Sunni rivals, who support Mr Hariri, demonstrated for a second day across the country including the capital Beirut and the main highway linking the capital with the southern port city of Sidon.

A senior military official said several armed men fired in the air in west Beirut, but the army intervened and dispersed them.

The largest gathering was in the northern city of Tripoli, a predominantly Sunni area and a hotbed of fundamentalists where thousands of people converged at a major square and set fire to an Al-Jazeera TV van.

Soldiers also clashed with demonstrators in the town of Naameh, south of Beirut, and two civilians were wounded.

Mr Hariri thanked people for their support but called for restraint.

“I understand your emotions ... but this rage should not lead us to what is against our morals, faith and beliefs,” he said.

Many fear Lebanon’s political crisis could re-ignite sectarian fighting similar to Shiite-Sunni street clashes that killed 81 people in Beirut in 2008. But besides the protest in Tripoli, the gatherings were mostly localised and not hugely disruptive.

Hezbollah brought down Saad Hariri’s Western-backed government on January 12 when he refused the group’s demand to cease cooperation with a UN-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of his father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Hezbollah, which denies any role in the killing, is widely expected to be indicted.

The group can now either form its own government, leaving Mr Hariri and his allies to become the opposition, or it can try to persuade him to join a national unity government.