BEIRUT, 25 September 2007 — Lebanon’s Parliament speaker was optimistic yesterday that a new president would be elected by a Nov. 24 deadline despite a total deadlock among rival MPs on the eve of a crucial session in the house.

“By Nov. 24, there will be a president of the republic who will have the approval of all the Lebanese,” Nabih Berri, who is a leading opposition member, told reporters.

His upbeat statement came as the two camps in divided Lebanon acknowledged today’s session of Parliament to choose a new president was unlikely to yield a result since feuding parties have yet to agree on a consensus candidate.

The session, the first in nearly a year because of a long-running political crisis, comes after anti-Syrian MP Antoine Ghanem was killed in a car bombing last Wednesday that the ruling majority blamed on Damascus.

Ghanem was the eighth anti-Syrian politician to be assassinated since the 2005 murder of five-time Prime Minister Rafik Hariri that led to protests and forced Syria to end 29 years of military domination in Lebanon.

The Western-backed government asked the army yesterday to take “all security measures...to guarantee the safety of MPs,” who have been living in hiding, many of them in a highly secure luxury hotel near the Parliament.

Berri’s comments came after a surprise meeting with powerful Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, who heads the Maronite church from which the country’s heads of state are traditionally chosen.

“The atmosphere is positive, not pessimistic,” the speaker said.

“I am optimistic, but one hand cannot clap on its own,” he added, urging the ruling majority to “put our hands together in order to reach a solution that would satisfy everybody.” Several legislators and politicians interviewed by AFP said today’s session would focus on consultative talks between the feuding factions rather than try to reach the quorum necessary to elect a president.

“This is going to be an opportunity for consultations, to touch base because we haven’t been talking to each other for some time,” said Ghassan Tueni, an MP with the ruling majority.

“It will be a good opportunity for the speaker to put out feelers as to possible candidates, but only feelers played in a poker-game manner,” the editor and publisher of leading newspaper An-Nahar added.

Tueni and several others said that Berri would probably call for a new session of Parliament after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which ends on Oct. 12 or 13.

“Lawmakers will probably meet again on the 16th or 17th of October,” said Ali Bazzi, a deputy with the opposition Amal movement which Berri heads.

Lawmakers have between Sept. 24 and Nov. 24 to choose a candidate to replace President Emile Lahoud, whose six-year term was controversially extended by three years in 2004 in a Syrian-inspired constitutional amendment.

A two-thirds majority is required for a candidate to be elected by Parliament from a first round of voting. In the event of a second round a simple majority suffices.

Telecommunications minister and MP Marwan Hamadeh said lawmakers from the ruling coalition, who number 68, planned to show up in force today to mark their determination to end the crisis.

But a top Hezbollah official, Mohammed Fneish, said at the weekend that the party’s 14 MPs would not attend the parliamentary session if no agreement was reached beforehand on a consensus candidate.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s government has been paralyzed since pro-Syrian opposition forces, led by Hezbollah, withdrew their six ministers from the Cabinet.