$Stock*Shop*Charts*News*Option$

[d272]

BL: Lebanon Elects Suleiman President as Hezbollah Gains (Update2)

By Daniel Williams and Will McSheehy

May 25 (Bloomberg) -- Lebanon's parliament elected armed forces chief Michel Suleimanpresident, ending a power struggle in which Hezbollah, labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S., gained authority at the expense of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's pro-Western government.

The result of the vote was carried by international broadcasters and was a foregone conclusion. Siniora's parliamentary bloc and the Hezbollah-led opposition on May 21 endorsed Suleiman, 59, as part of an Arab League-brokered deal struck in Qatar to end a political crisis that sparked the worst fighting since the 1975-1990 civil war. Suleiman was elected by 118 of the 127 lawmakers who voted, Agence France-Presse said.

Fighters allied with Hezbollah's political party stormed Beirut neighborhoods May 7 after Siniora threatened to shut an airport surveillance system and dismantle a once-secret telephone network operated by the Shiite Muslim group. During six days of talks last week Hezbollah and allies secured enough cabinet seats to ensure veto power in a new government, while refusing to discuss the disarmament sought by Siniora and his U.S. backers.

Suleiman is now supposed to oversee discussion of the future of Hezbollah's militia, which fought a 33-day war with Israel in 2006. Under two United Nations Security Council resolutions, passed in 2004 and 2006, Hezbollah is required to disarm. Hezbollah, an ally of Iran and Syria, says the militia is needed to protect Lebanon from Israel.

Bush Confidence

President George W. Bush congratulated Suleiman. ``I am confident that Lebanon has chosen a leader committed to protecting its sovereignty, extending the government's authority over all of Lebanon and upholding Lebanon's international obligations,'' he said in a statement. The new agreement should ``usher in an era of political reconciliation,'' Bush said.

Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, offered his ``sincere wishes for the success of the mandate'' that has been entrusted to Suleiman. ``Let me take this opportunity to reiterate the European Commission's great satisfaction with the agreement reached by the Lebanese parties in Doha, which has made the election of a president possible,'' Barroso said in an e-mailed statement.

As the militia took over parts of Beirut earlier this month, Suleiman allowed the army to stand idly by and ignored orders from Siniora to clear the streets of gunmen. The passive response suggests he will not be tough on Hezbollah, predicts Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous, a political science professor at Beirut's Notre Dame University.

`Real Power'

``Hezbollah showed it was the real power in Lebanon,'' Sensenig-Dabbous said in an interview.

Under Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing arrangement, the country's president is Maronite Christian, the prime minister is Sunni Muslim and speaker of parliament is Shiite. Hezbollah withdrew from Siniora's cabinet in November 2006 after demanding veto power. A bloc holding a third of cabinet portfolios can obstruct decisions by the majority, and in Qatar Hezbollah and allies won 11 out of 30 ministries.

Sixteen seats will be divided among Sunnis, Christian and Druze members of Siniora's coalition. The opposition also includes the Shiite Amal party and a Christian party. The president will decide the distribution of the remaining three seats.

Suleiman becomes Lebanon's 14th president since independence from France in 1943. He replaces Syria-backed Emile Lahoud, who stepped down in November at the end of his term and who hadn't been replaced in 19 attempts to convene a parliamentary vote.

To contact the reporters on this story: Daniel Williams in Beirut at [e-mail] McSheehy in Dubai at [e-mail]
Last Updated: May 25, 2008 14:24 EDT