(AFP) – Nov 20, 2007

BEIRUT (AFP) — Lebanon's presidential election was postponed on Tuesday for a fourth time amid last-ditch efforts by the government and the opposition to agree a consensus candidate by a Friday deadline.

"The session has been postponed until Friday 1:00 pm (1100 GMT)," said a statement from the office of parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a supporter of the Syrian-backed opposition.

The delay was first announced by a member of parliament's ruling majority and later confirmed by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country has been leading international mediation efforts.

"There are two days left and I hope that the leaders of this country will pick a candidate," Kouchner told reporters after meeting Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, spiritual leader of the Maronite Christian community from which Lebanese presidents are traditionally drawn.

Three other sessions to elect a successor to pro-Syrian incumbent Emile Lahoud have been postponed over the past two months amid a lack of consensus between the Western-backed majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition.

Several officials contacted by AFP said the latest delay was intended to give the feuding sides a last chance to strike a deal before Lahoud's mandate expires at midnight (2200 GMT) Friday.

"We are totally deadlocked and this is what Syria wants," pro-government MP Solange Gemayel told AFP. "Syria wants a constitutional void and wants to impose on us someone under their influence."

She said the opposition, which is also backed by Syrian ally Iran, was insisting that the name of only one candidate -- former minister Michel Edde -- be submitted for a vote in parliament.

"It is out of the question for the majority to accept Edde because as far as we are concerned he is pro-Syrian," she said.

Kouchner and Arab League chief Amr Mussa meanwhile shuttled between the rival sides to try to persuade them to reach a compromise.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy also dispatched two top aides, Claude Gueant and Jean-David Levitte, to Damascus to discuss the Lebanese crisis with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for the second time in two weeks.

Syria's official media reported that Sarkozy also telephoned Assad himself, ending a nearly three-year freeze on top-level contacts between the two governments instituted by his predecessor Jacques Chirac after the murder of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri, a personal friend.

Fears are running high that failure to meet Friday's deadline could spur the formation of two governments, a grim reminder of the end of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war when two competing administrations battled it out.

The president in Lebanon wields little power, and the current standoff is widely seen as an extension of the regional confrontation pitting the United States and key ally Saudi Arabia against Iran and Syria.

The Shiite militant group Hezbollah has said it will not settle for a president chosen by Washington while the majority has baulked at any candidate close to Syria and Iran.

Security reinforcements meanwhile guarded sensitive areas such as the parliament building, the premier's office and a luxury Beirut hotel where pro-government MPs have been staying for fear of assassination.

Six MPs of the anti-Syrian governing majority have been assassinated since the 2005 murder of Hariri.

Syria, which still wields considerable influence in Lebanon despite being forced to end its 29-year military domination of its smaller neighbour after Hariri's killing, has denied any involvement.

Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's government has been paralysed since the opposition withdrew its six ministers from the cabinet in November 2006 in a bid to gain more representation in government.

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