Lebanese opposition calls for early election

Lebanese opposition has called for an early parliamentary election to resolve the current political crisis, local Naharnet news website reported on Tuesday.

"Different groups of the opposition at a meeting on Monday decided to call, as a priority, for early legislative elections," former premier Omar Karami, an opposition leader, was quoted as saying.

He said the decision was taken "to resolve the crisis provoked by the obstinacy of the illegitimate government."

The report added that the opposition would step up its protests against Prime Minister Fouad Seniora's government if Arab League mediation failed to meet its demands for a national unity government.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, following a visit to Riyadh, is to return to Beirut on Tuesday to resume his efforts to broker a deal after several weeks of political deadlock.

"We will cooperate as much as possible with Amr Moussa and wish him luck," Karami said in a statement released on Monday.

The opposition, led by Hezbollah, have been holding an open- ended sit-in since Dec. 1 outside the government headquarters in downtown Beirut in a bid to topple Seniora's government.

Lebanese sectarian tension began to escalate last month when six pro-Syrian ministers resigned after Seniora and the anti- Syrian majority in the parliament rejected the opposition's demand for a new national unity government.

In the wake of their resignation, the opposition said that Seniora's government had lost its legitimacy since Shiite Muslims are no longer represented.

However, the anti-Syrian ruling parliamentary majority has accused the opposition of doing Damascus and Tehran's bidding and seeking to undermine the formation of an international tribunal on the case of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's killing.

Source: Xinhua