By DPA
Beirut : The allies of former prime minister Rafik Hariri, who gathered here to commemorate his third death anniversary Thursday, intensified their position against the opposition led by Hezbollah, and vowed that Lebanon would soon have a consensus president.
“No matter what the consequences will be, we will have a president soon,” Saad Hariri, son of the late premier and head of the ruling majority, told the huge crowd at a mass rally in downtown Beirut.
“We will not fear all their (opposition) threats…we will work towards the truth (in the Rafik Hariri assassinaton),” Hariri said.
“There is no value for an Arab summit if there is no Lebanese president,” Hariri said referring to the Arab summit due to be held in the Syrian capital March 29-30.
Lebanon has been engulfed in a deep political crisis since Rafik Hariri’s murder, which sparked international outrage. The majority has accused Syria of being behind Hariri’s murder, a charge it has vehemently denied.
The political struggle has left Lebanon without a president since Nov 23, when pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud stepped down at the end of his mandate with no elected successor. All attempts to elect a new president have since failed.
Saad Hariri stressed that the “Syrian regime is trying to drag the Lebanese resistance (Hezbollah) into a civil war in Lebanon to weaken it”.
He hinted that Hezbollah’s military commander, Imad Muganiyeh, who was killed in car bomb blast in Damascus Tuesday, was assassinated by the Syrian regime.
“The Hezbollah military commander died under the eyes of the Syrian regime and God knows the rest,” Hariri said.
Hezbollah is due to start the funeral precession of Muganiyeh later Thursday in Beirut’s southern suburbs in the presence of Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Tens of thousands of pro-government supporters gathered under heavy rain to mark the third anniversary of Rafik Hariri’s assassination, only a few kilometres from where the Hezbollah prepared to bury Muganiyeh.
Amid fears of clashes between the rival pro- and anti-Syrian factions, some 20,000 army troops and security forces were deployed in the capital.
As the rally was underway, members of Hariri’s family and the ruling coalition inaugurated a square at the site of his killing on the Beirut seafront.
They also unveiled a bronze statue, a sculpture in the form of a flame and an obelisk bearing his accomplishments and sayings.