BEIRUT - Lebanon's influential patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir on Friday submitted a list of potential presidential candidates in hope of ending a crisis threatening to derail a looming vote, France's top diplomat here said.
Andre Parant told reporters after meeting with Sfeir that the prelate had authorized him to confirm that parliament speaker Nabih Berri and Saad Hariri, head of the majority bloc in parliament, had each been given a list of names to hash over.
"It is now up to Berri and Hariri to meet in order to try and reach consensus based on this list," said Parant, France's Charge D'Affaires.
The patriarch's list was awaited anxiously in Lebanese circles in hope it would prompt the ruling majority and the opposition to agree on a candidate by a November 23 deadline.
The two sides have been at loggerheads over who should succeed the current pro-Syrian head of state Emile Lahoud, prompting fears that two parallel governments could be formed.
A Lebanese official who did not wish to be identified said that the list submitted by Sfeir included three declared candidates -- Nassib Lahoud and Boutros Harb, both of whom are backed by the ruling majority, and Michel Aoun from the opposition.
The official said three other names were added to the list -- Robert Ghanem, a lawyer and member of parliament, Joseph Tarabay, who heads the board of the Union of Arab Banks and the Association of Lebanese Banks and Damianos Kattar, who served as finance minister in the interim government of former Prime Minister Najib Mikati in 2005.
Lebanon's president must be a Maronite Christian according to the country's confessional power-sharing system and is elected by parliament rather than by popular suffrage.
Three special parliament sessions to elect a successor to Lahoud have already been postponed because of the deadlock and there are fears that a last-chance vote on November 21 could meet the same fate.
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