BEIRUT, 16 June 2004 — Lebanon’s presidential campaign got under way yesterday with three contestants in a race for which neighboring Syria sets the rules and could ignore all three to return the current President Emile Lahoud, despite his expired mandate.

All three candidates, in the political tradition of Lebanon since its 1943 independence, come from the Maronite community, the largest and most influential among the Christians in the country.

One of them is Nayla Mowaad, widow of former president Rene Mowaad who was killed in November 1989 in a sector of Beirut patrolled by the Syrian Army, and who is hostile to the Syrian grip on its tiny neighbor.

The two others are Boutros Harb, a prominent member of the Qornet Shehwan Christian opposition group who has strengthened his links with Damascus, and Robert Ghanem, a pro-Syrian MP.

The only Christian among his 21 Arab countries’ counterparts, the president of Lebanon is elected by Parliament. His position was stripped of many of its prerogatives under the Taif peace accords of 1989 which ended 15 years of civil war.

The head of state ceded some powers to the Council of Ministers, headed by a Sunni Muslim prime minister, while the 128-member Parliament is presided over by a Shiite Muslim. The current head of the government, Rafiq Hariri, a millionaire with strong international links, particularly with France, the United States, the European Union, Syria and Saudi Arabia, is vehemently opposed to the return of Lahoud, whose re-election would need a constitutional amendment by Parliament.

Lahoud, backed strongly by current Syria President Bashar Al-Assad, has been recently disputing Hariri’s authority. But his presidential term ends in November.

Syria, which arbitrates amid the accords and disagreements of the Lebanese leaders, blows hot and cold. Damascus affirms both that the election is a “strictly Lebanese affair” and at the same time that the door is open to extending Lahoud’s mandate.

Theoretically, nothing prevents Damascus from imposing such an extension as the overwhelming majority of parliamentarians are favorable to it.

Parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri and the influential Druze chief Walid Jumblatt, allies of Hariri, have not disclosed their intentions but they are against any return of Lahoud.

Five Plotters Charged

Lebanon has accused five people of plotting with Israel to assassinate the head of the Hezbollah group, judicial sources said yesterday. Charges filed by a Lebanese military prosecutor against a Palestinian woman, Jamal Zaaroura, and four others include forming an armed group to commit crimes, blow up military targets and assassinate Hezbollah head Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

The charges also include conspiring with Israel and trafficking Israeli-made poisonous goods intended for distribution in Lebanon and other Arab countries.

Lebanese authorities have previously said Zaaroura was recruited by Israel’s Mossad in Tunisia to build a spy ring in Lebanon. A Tunisian official said no one with that name held a Tunisian passport or used that identity to enter the country.

The charges against the five, who have been in custody since early June, could carry a jail term of life with hard labor.