Lebanese Presidential Vote to Go Ahead Despite Killing

Lebanese leaders today vowed to press ahead with the task of choosing a new president despite the assassination of an anti-Syrian MP in a bomb attack yesterday.

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice - who is currently holding talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders - has condemned the assassination of Antoine Ghanem as "simply unacceptable".

In remarks directed at Syria, but without naming it, she also said the Lebanese people had the right to hold forthcoming elections "without the fear of intimidation, without the fear of foreign interference".

Mr Ghanem and six others died when a powerful bomb exploded in a Christian neighborhood of Beirut yesterday. The killing threatens to derail efforts by a divided parliament to elect a president.

Mr Ghanem, a 64-year-old member of the Christian Phalange party and a possible compromise candidate, had returned from refuge abroad only two days earlier.

He is the latest victim in a series of political assassinations since February 14 2005, when a large bomb blast killed the former prime minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others.

The killings sparked mass protests that forced the exit of Syrian armed forces from Lebanon after 29 years. Ruling coalition members blamed Syria for the latest murder, but Damascus - as it has in previous cases - denied any involvement.

The US-backed Lebanese prime minister, Fuad Saniora, wrote to the UN secretary general asking him to add the Ghanem killing to an international inquiry into Hariri's death and other political crimes in Lebanon.

Schools, universities and many businesses in Christian areas of Beirut closed today in a day of mourning and to observe a strike called by the Phalange party. A funeral is scheduled to take place tomorrow.

Mr Saniora pledged that Lebanon would not be cowed by the assassination and would press ahead with choosing a president.

"The hand of terror will not win and will not succeed in subduing us and silencing us," he said in a statement. "The Lebanese will not retreat and will have a new president elected by lawmakers, no matter how big the conspiracy was."

President Emile Lahoud is due to step down on November 24, and government supporters view the vote as a chance to elect a less pro-Syrian figure to the post.

Despite the latest assassination, the anti-Syrian group still commands a majority in parliament, with 68 seats to the opposition's 59.

The militant group Hizbullah, and its allies in the pro-Syrian opposition have vowed to block any rival candidate. They can do so by boycotting the vote, preventing the required two-thirds quorum of 85 votes.

Many Lebanese fear the division over the presidency could lead to two rival governments in a country that had barely started to recover from the 1975-1990 civil war before last summer's conflict with Israel.

Nabih Berri, the parliamentary speaker, said he would press ahead with Tuesday's session and begin the process of electing a president.