How does the president factor into Lebanons politics?
First of all, Lebanon’s president has considerable legal and moral weight in the Lebanese system. The president, by being Christian, and in working with the Shia speaker [in Parliament] and Sunni prime minister, provides balance in the system. The president ends up playing an important role in making that power-sharing work. I would say that part of the gridlock now within the Lebanese system is because the current president, Emile Lahoud, is so deeply beholden to the Syrian regime that he is not accepted by the majority of Lebanese as legitimately representing Lebanon’s best interest. After Syria left Lebanon in 2005, members of Parliament who had been there at the time of Lahoud’s [three-year] mandate extension in 2004 signed a letter attesting that they had only done so because of pressure from Syria. So it became crystal clear that Lahoud’s presence in [the presidential palace] beyond his first six-year turn was due to Syrian pressure. Right now, the struggle between the narrow pro
