Power vacuum in Lebanon

Lebanon plunged into a constitutional crisis last week when the president’s term ended with no successor in place. The unprecedented power vacuum pits the country’s Western-backed prime minister, Fouad Siniora, against pro-Syrian opposition parties such as Hezbollah, which supported the outgoing president, Emile Lahoud. Under the constitution, a new president must be elected by the parliament, which Siniora’s coalition controls by a slim margin. But opposition parties have been boycotting parliament. “This government is illegitimate,” said Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem. “It can’t rule and it can’t exercise the role of the presidency.”

In his final act as president, Lahoud ordered the army into the streets to prevent “a state of emergency.” But Siniora declared the order invalid and said that until a new president is elected, he is in charge. The army set up checkpoints but has remained neutral. Despite the tensions, both sides say they want to avoid violence. Parliament said it would make a sixth attempt to elect a president later this week, after The Week went to press.

“This is no simple red state vs. blue state political crisis,” said Hannah Allam in The Miami Herald. Lebanon is divided among Sunnis, Shiites, and Christians, with Syria, Iran, the U.S., the Palestinians, and other groups all jockeying for influence. Dragging it back from the brink will require a leader of uncommon statesmanship, dedicated to national unity. Such a person “doesn’t seem to be among the current crop of potentials.”

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Lebanon’s constitution ensures this ugly sectarianism, said Linda Heard in the Saudi Arabia Arab News. It requires a Sunni prime minister, a Shiite parliament speaker, and a Maronite Christian president. A functional country must be run “by persons best qualified for office, not individuals whose support rests on neotribal or religious loyalties.”

All eyes are now on Syria, said Nicholas Blanford in The Christian Science Monitor. Syria actually showed up—albeit at the last minute—to this week’s Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Md., a signal that it seeks better relations with the U.S. and other Arab states. Lebanon’s pro-Western camp worries that it could be “sold out in a broader deal between the U.S., Syria, and Iran, knowing that Lebanese sovereignty has often been sacrificed for regional harmony.”