WORLD : Lebanese Parliament Chooses Successor to Slain President

Parliament today elected Elias Hrawi, a Maronite Catholic legislator, to be the new president to replace Rene Mouawad, who was assassinated in a massive bomb blast Wednesday after only 17 days in office.

Officials said Hrawi, 59, a wealthy agricultural engineer, was elected on a 53-2 vote just 20 minutes after his fellow parliamentarians convened under tight security in a hotel at this market town east of Beirut. He is Lebanon’s 10th president.

State-run Channel 7, based in Muslim West Beirut, interrupted its programs to broadcast the short report, which did not disclose further details. “Lebanon again elected a head of state. The nation is determined to survive in defiance of President Mouawad’s assassins,” the announcer said.

Hrawi, who has represented the Zahleh region in Parliament since 1972, maintains good contacts with the nation’s Muslims as well as neighboring Syria.

The election of Hrawi was expected to advance efforts to form a national unity government that would introduce political reforms aimed at ending Lebanon’s brutal 14-year-old civil war.

But that effort will be opposed by the Christian army commander, Maj. Gen. Michel Aoun, who condemns a peace plan brokered by the Arab League because it fails to say when Syria’s 40,000 troops will be withdrawn from Lebanon.