Lebanese President Won't Resign, Aide Says

Las Vegas Sun ^ | March 20, 2005 at 17:13:59 PST | HUSSEIN DAKROUB

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -

President Emile Lahoud will not bow to pressure from the anti-Syrian opposition to resign, a senior aide said Sunday as the crisis in Lebanon deepens since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Lahoud's media adviser stressed the president can be forced to step down only if he is impeached by Parliament for either violation of the constitution or high treason.

"Since these two matters have not occurred ... this issue is out of the question for the president," Rafik Shalala told The Associated Press. Lahoud, Shalala said, "will not relinquish power and leave a constitutional vacuum in the country."

Lebanon's president is elected by Parliament.

On Saturday, the Druse leader Walid Jumblatt, who is leading the opposition campaign against Syria's military and political role in Lebanon, renewed his call for Lahoud to step down as a way out of the political crisis.

"Unless a new president is elected from the current Parliament - and there are many opposition legislators who are qualified to lead the country - the future may be unknown," Jumblatt said in a speech to supporters.

Only Jumblatt and four other legislators - and not the entire opposition - have demanded Lahoud's resignation.

Lebanon's most prominent anti-Syrian opposition leader, former army commander Gen. Michel Aoun, said from France that he is against Lahoud's resignation for now because the current 128-member legislature, packed with Syria's supporters, can elect a new president loyal to Damascus.

"We do not want to bring the president down under the present Parliament because this Parliament can immediately elect a pro-Syrian president," Aoun said in a statement published Sunday by An-Nahar newspaper.

Also Sunday, an eight-member delegation from the U.S. Congress visited Lebanon briefly to pay condolences to Hariri's family and meet opposition figures.

"The purpose of our visit to Lebanon, as a congressional delegation, is to say to the people of Lebanon that the world is watching," said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, of California, who headed the delegation.

The delegation demanded a full withdrawal of Syrian troops.

The assassination of Hariri, Lahoud's political rival, in a massive Beirut bombing threw the country into its worst political crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war. The opposition blames the Beirut government and its Syrian backers for the murder and wants an international investigation and the resignation of Lebanon's security agency chiefs.

Both governments deny involvement in Hariri's killing, which triggered anti-government and anti-Syrian street protests and counter-demonstrations by the pro-government camp.

Hariri's assassination and the subsequent tension also brought international pressure on Syria to withdraw its army and intelligence agents from Lebanon after nearly three decades. The troops completed the first phase of their withdrawal on Thursday, to Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley and to Syria.

U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen also called for calm in Lebanon, saying he is worried that another Lebanese leader might be assassinated, An-Nahar reported Sunday. He did not name the leader.

The president on Saturday decided to stay away from an Arab summit in Algeria, citing "exceptional circumstances" after a car bomb rocked a Christian neighborhood in Beirut, injuring nine people and raising the specter of renewed violence.

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[Patrick_k]

Oh that Shalala! I wonder which PR genius gave President Lahood that great advice to go public on air last saturday treating the assassination of a former PM as an act of vandalism!