Pro-Syrian Prime Minister Set to Return in Lebanon
By JAD MOUAWAD
The New York Times
March 9, 2005
BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 9 - Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Émile Lahoud, is set to call back Omar Karami as prime minister, nine days after he was forced to resign under pressure from opponents to the Syrian occupation of Lebanon.
More than 71 deputies out of a total of 126 named Mr. Karami, according to the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation television. The president is bound by the choice of the parliament, which is largely dominated by pro-Syrian deputies, and will appoint Mr. Karami on Thursday.
The nomination is certain to be a disappointment for those who had sought an end to the interference of Damascus in Lebanon; it threatens to lock the small Mediterranean country in a political impasse and calls into question the parliamentary elections scheduled in May.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese have been demonstrating against Syria following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14. The protests led to Mr. Karami's resignation last week and forced the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to say he will withdraw his troops from Lebanon, where they entered in 1976.
But today Syria has temporarily regained the initiative, emboldened by the huge turnout during a pro-Syrian rally in downtown Beirut on Tuesday. Opposition politicians said they would refuse to participate in any new government before their demands are met.
"This will be seen as a slap in the face of the opposition," said Michael Young, a political analyst and the opinion editor of The Daily Star in Beirut. "Mr. Karami will have no room for maneuver. He's weak, he's been challenged before, he's damaged goods."
Pressure from the United States and Europe has been mounting on Syria to withdraw its 14,000 soldiers from Lebanon since it imposed a three-year extension of President Lahoud's mandate. The action prompted the resignation of Mr. Hariri in October and his replacement by Mr. Karami.
This is the third time Mr. Karami, the scion of a prominent Sunni family and a Syria loyalist, has been called to head Lebanon's government and twice he resigned in the face of street protests. His first resignation was in 1992 following an unpopular economic program. The decision is partly a reflection of the political void among Sunni Muslims left by the death of Mr. Hariri. By tradition, the country's prime minister is picked from that religious community; the president is traditionally a Maronite Christian and the speaker of parliament a Shiite Muslim.
"This is part stubbornness and part blindness," Joseph Samaha, a prominent Lebanese commentator and the editor in chief of the Beirut newspaper Al Safir. "The decision seems absurd, even Kafkaian, but the death of Mr. Hariri has left a huge void. Unfortunately there are few people left."
Given the growing political deadlock, some analysts said the opposition should have focused on President Lahoud, who has proved to be Syria's most loyal ally in Lebanon, instead of demanding Mr. Karami's resignation after the death of Mr. Hariri.
"The key of this political impasse is that the Lebanese don't trust this president anymore," said Chibli Mallat, a law professor at St. Joseph University in Beirut. "The opposition has to correct the initial mistake, which was to target Karami. Karami is only a footnote."
So far, few opposition leaders are ready to go that far. Only Walid Jumblatt, the Druse leader who has emerged as the most prominent voice against Syria, has asked Mr. Lahoud to step down.
The opposition, built around a fragile bloc of deputies ranging from moderate Christians, to Druze and Sunni partisans of Mr. Hariri, has demanded an independent international investigation into the assassination of the former prime minister.
They've also asked for the resignation of top security officials in Lebanon and a full withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence services from Lebanon as a condition for their involvement in any government.
"In May, it's the elections and we want a pullout of the Syrian troops and intelligence services before the elections," Mr. Jumblatt said during a news conference in Brussels after leading Lebanese opponents met with Javier Solana, the European Union's representative for foreign and security policy, in Brussels.
Opposition leaders asked for a transition government that does not include candidates running for parliament in two months. Instead, pro-Syrian politicians said they would seek a government of national unity.
If the opposition, which has about 50 deputies, does not want to participate, Nabih Berri, the pro-Syrian speaker of parliament, said, "well, we won't kill ourselves."
Nizar Hamzeh, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, said: "You have two camps and they are becoming increasingly polarized. The Lebanese political system can handle the Syrian withdrawal if all its factions find common grounds. But without a consensus, Lebanon can't handle a power vacuum."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company |
