Naharnet Newsdesk - Drive to Overthrow Lahoud Screeches to a Halt, Seemingly at Hizbullah's Behest

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Drive to Overthrow Lahoud Screeches to a Halt, Seemingly at Hizbullah's Behest

Walid Jumblat has suddenly applied the brakes, sending a drive to 'isolate then evict' President Lahoud from the Baabda palace screeching to a halt.
"The President of the Republic has not been accused, yet. So the President of the Republic exists," Jumblat said after an evening meeting with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah at his south Beirut command headquarters Sunday.

Asked about calls to boycott the president and stop holding cabinet meetings under his chairmanship at the Baabda Palace, Jumblat said such a move required consultations with Saad Hariri and other allies in the March 14 front.

Information Minister Ghazi Aridi, a senior Jumblat aide who attended the meeting with Nasrallah, said no decision has been made to boycott the president or cabinet meetings under his chairmanship at the Baabda palace.

Jumblat's change of heart came hardly 24 hours after he had ruled that the formal charge of Lahoud's 4 major security generals with complicity in ex-Premier Hariri's assassination "spelled out the end of the president's extended term."

"There seems to be a political balance that dictates a brake on the fast-moving drift toward a power crisis," An Nahar said Monday in an apparent attempt to explain Jumblat's sudden switch.

The cabinet is scheduled to convene under Premier Seniora at the Grand Serail Monday evening. "Cabinet ministers are all functioning normally at their ministries. The Government persists," Seniora said.

Asked whether cabinet meetings would still be held at the Baabda Palace, Seniora said "we will take into consideration all the developments in the investigation. All what I can say now is that the cabinet will convene at the Grand Serail Monday."

Some media analysts speculated that Jumblat could not win over Hizbullah to a vote in parliament to cancel the three-year extension of the Lahoud regime, which was taken Sept. 3, which means Speaker Berri's parliamentary bloc would follow Nasrallah's suit. Both Shiite factions control 28 votes in the legislature, which is made up of 128 seats.

Bearing in mind that Gen. Aoun's 21-strong bloc in parliament would probably stand against a termination of Lahoud's term before the outcome of the Hariri investigation is finalized, the Druze leader must have felt a showdown to dethrone Lahoud is still premature.

Beirut, 05 Sep 05, 09:20


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