BEIRUT, 24 November 2007 — Lebanon faced a dangerous power vacuum and further political chaos after rival politicians failed again yesterday to elect a successor to President Emile Lahoud, whose mandate expired at midnight.
Lahoud’s office said he would step down as scheduled despite the inability of the pro- and anti-Syrian camps to replace him and that he had handed over security to the army.
That prompted a rejection from the ruling parliamentary majority, which claimed he has no constitutional authority to do so. With tanks and troops on the streets of Beirut to maintain security, Lebanon’s Parliament failed yesterday to grasp its last chance to elect a head of state before Lahoud leaves office.
Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri put off the vote for a fifth time because rival factions were deadlocked. He delayed the session for a week. “To allow for more consultations to arrive at the election of a president...the session is postponed to Friday, Nov. 30,” Berri said in a statement read on his behalf.
The delay means the presidency, always held by a Maronite Christian under Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system, will be vacant for at least a week. Unless a consensus candidate emerges soon, the country could end up saddled with competing administrations as at the end of its 1975-1990 civil war.
Before announcing the delay, Berri held separate meetings with majority leaders Saad Al-Hariri and Walid Jumblatt, a sign the rival camps have not yet burned all their bridges.
“We are for consensus and we will remain for consensus,” Hariri said. “We want to elect a president for six years.” He was implicitly rejecting a proposal by opposition Christian leader Michel Aoun for an interim president to serve only until the next parliamentary election in 2009.
Hariri later met Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir and said he had promised to pursue talks with Berri to find a consensus candidate. “We will not leave the country in a vacuum,” he said.
Yesterday’s move by Lahoud to hand over the security of the nation to the army threatens to plunge Lebanon into further chaos. According to Article 62 of the constitution, if no candidate is agreed by Parliament to replace Lahoud, presidential powers pass to the government.
Lahoud, a former army chief who has been head of state since 1998, has vowed not to hand executive power to the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, which he does not recognize.
“The postponement pushed him to study measures that he has to adopt in order to protect the security and stability of the country and in order to protect the unity of Lebanon, its land, people and institutions,” spokesman Rafiq Shalala said, without elaborating.
Shalala later announced that Lahoud had decided to hand over to the army responsibility for maintaining order throughout the country. “There are conditions and risks on the ground that could lead to a state of emergency,” he said. Lahoud had adopted the measure “given the exceptional circumstances and in the interest of the country,” he said.
It was not immediately clear if the president had actually declared a state of emergency, but a senior security official said Lahoud’s decision effectively amounted to one. “The announcement amounts to declaring a state of emergency,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
An official in Siniora’s office said the statement from Lahoud’s office “is not valid and unconstitutional. It is as if the statement was never issued.”
