Lebanon Faces Crisis Over Leader : Factions Fail to OK a Candidate; Violent Split Feared

In the worst political crisis in Lebanon’s 45-year history, Christian and Muslim warlords failed to agree Wednesday on a compromise presidential candidate to assume power when President Amin Gemayel’s six-year term ends Friday.

Lebanon’s Parliament is scheduled to vote on a new president today. But after a surprise, last-minute summit meeting between Gemayel and Syrian President Hafez Assad in Damascus fell short of an agreement Wednesday, Lebanese officials expressed pessimism that Parliament would manage even to muster a quorum. A previous attempt to elect a new chief of state Aug. 18 collapsed when only 38 of the 76 members of the unicameral Parliament showed up.

Constitutional Vacuum

Failure to select a new president would leave Lebanon with a constitutional vacuum. “This election is absolutely critical to the continuation of the Lebanese state,” said a State Department official who asked not to be named.

“Without (an election), Lebanon would be divided into antagonistic enclaves, which would become breeding grounds for external forces to operate in and from which there would be increased drug trafficking and international terrorism,” this official said, predicting escalating violence “that would threaten to drag in regional and foreign states.”

Since the first failed effort to choose a president, the United States and Syria have been scrambling to avoid two outcomes: a de facto partitioning of the tiny state into Christian and Muslim fiefdoms or a military coup that would also fragment Lebanon along sectarian lines.

Both Outcomes Possible

U.S. officials said they have reason to believe that both outcomes are possible.

If Parliament does not choose a president today, Gemayel, a Maronite Christian, has said he is prepared to appoint a provisional government--in effect, a Christian Cabinet. After returning from the four-hour summit in Damascus, Gemayel began working on plans for such a government, according to Lebanese officials.

Gemayel’s provisional government would become a rival to the Cabinet of the current Muslim premier, Salim Hoss, who has the backing of Lebanon’s Muslim militias and of the Syrian government, the major power broker in Lebanon. That would leave two rival bodies governing the now well-defined Christian and Muslim regions.

Meanwhile, the army commander, Gen. Michel Aoun, also a Maronite, threatened this week that “the army will not allow itself to stand by as an idle spectator after Sept. 23 if presidential elections do not take place. If things get bad and the country appears threatened, those capable of salvation and rescue will not hesitate or procrastinate.”

The United States has played a central role in the evolving crisis.

State Department sources confirmed that Secretary of State George P. Shultz sent a letter to Gemayel this week appealing for his assurance that the vote for president would take place. Shultz also pledged that the United States is prepared to get involved in a major new reconciliation attempt after the election, according to U.S. and Lebanese officials.

Search for Candidate

Last week, Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy spent six days meeting with Syrian officials in the search for a candidate who could win the backing of both Christians and Muslims.

Before the Aug. 18 attempt to elect a president in Parliament, Damascus put forward the name of Suleiman Franjieh, the aged and ailing Maronite politician who was president from 1970 to 1976, the period when Lebanon disintegrated into civil war.

Although Franjieh is a Christian, as stipulated by the unwritten “national pact” distributing power among the country’s 17 recognized religious groups, he was rejected by right-wing Christian factions and the powerful Lebanese Forces militia because of his pro-Syrian views.

On Monday, the United States and Syria put forward the name of Mikhail Daher, a little-known lawyer in Parliament who is a friend of Franjieh. Less than 24 hours later, Daher was also rejected by the Christian rightists, and the army commander said he would not accept a candidate “appointed” by outsiders.

Looking for Syrian OK

Lebanese envoys said that Gemayel went to Damascus on Wednesday to try to win Syria’s approval, in principle, of another candidate. The Lebanese leader later told Christian members of the Lebanese Parliament that Assad had refused the request. Rightist Christian sentiment is growing around the candidacy of Raymond Edde, who has been in exile in Paris since 1976. Edde has taken a hard line against foreign intervention in Lebanon and repeatedly pledged to challenge both Syria and Israel, a stance that is likely to make him unacceptable to Syria.