Amendment in the hand of Berri - Ghanem

BEIRUT: A draft petition for an amendment to Lebanese Constitution to allow the country army chief to assume the vacant presidency has been submitted to Parliament, MP Robert Ghanem told AFP on Saturday. "We prepared a draft petition after making some amendments to it and we have sent it to [Speaker] Nabih Berri" for his approval, said the MP from the Western-backed ruling majority who heads Parliament's Administration and Justice Committee.
Ghanem was speaking a day after Berri postponed - for the seventh time since September - a session in Parliament to elect a replacement for ex-President Emile Lahoud, whose term ended on November 23.
A new date for the vote has been set for Tuesday to give feuding opposition and majority politicians another chance to settle their differences and choose Lahoud's successor.
The two camps have agreed in principle to elect army chief General Michel Suleiman, but are still divided on how to amend the Constitution to allow for his election, as well as on the shape and policies of the future government.
Article 49 of the Constitution stipulates that the presidency cannot be given to an acting senior civil servant, unless ten MPs petition for a constitutional amendment that must then be approved by two thirds of Parliament and endorsed by the government.
If Berri approves the draft petition prepared by Ghanem and fellow MP and former Justice Minister Bahij Tabbara, it must be signed by 10 deputies - five from the majority and five from the opposition.
"I am optimistic that opposition MPs will sign the petition alongside those of the ruling majority," Ghanem said.
Ali Bazzi, an MP from Berri's opposition Amal movement, also expressed optimism.
"We are heading toward ending the crisis over the presidency," he told AFP.
"Amal MPs are ready to sign the petition to amend the Constitution" allowing for Suleiman to be elected, Bazzi said.
But Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun, also a presidential hopeful and former commander of the armed forces, steadfastly refused to budge from several demands.
Aoun wants the new president to serve until the 2009 legislative polls instead of six years as stipulated by the Constitution, and is opposed to any new Cabinet headed by majority leader Saad Hariri.
"We will not accept any formula to amend the Constitution without a comprehensive settlement, and this settlement will be fair if it says clearly that the majority leader will not head the next government," the pro-opposition daily Al-Akhbar quoted Aoun as saying on Saturday.
The standoff is Lebanon's worst internal crisis since the end of the 1975-1990 Civil War and is widely seen as an extension of the confrontation pitting the United States against Syria and Iran.
On Friday, the US State Department said it regrets the latest postponement of Lebanon's presidential vote, and urged legislators to overcome their differences quickly.