BEIRUT - Lebanese Prime Minister Nagib Miqati vowed Friday to organize polls on time this month despite rifts over an electoral law that has split the anti-Syrian opposition and threatened the country's delicate sectarian balance.
The international community also turned up the heat on Lebanon to stick to the election timetable, as new violence flared on the volatile border with Israel, underlining the dangers of a power vacuum.
"The government is determined to hold the elections on May 29," Miqati told reporters, after talks with the head of the Maronite Church, Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, who is fiercely opposed to the 2000 electoral law.
Sfeir has warned that the constituency boundaries in the 2000 law threaten Lebanon's fragile sectarian balance as they are seen as unfavourable to the Christian community.
Christian politicians, pro-Syrian and anti-Syrian alike, want to see much smaller constituencies like those set out in the 1960 electoral law.
Miqati said he discussed with Sfeir proposals to ease the differences between Muslim and Christian opposition leaders.
Acknowledging that the 2000 law had "flaws", Miqati held talks with pro-Syrian parliament speaker Nabih Berri to discuss the possibility of amending it.
"We will continue our consultations," the premier said after his talks with Berri, a Shiite who favours the current law.
In an effort to patch up their differences, opposition leaders met Thursday and agreed to set up as soon as possible a committee to draw up common lists of candidates for the 128-seat parliament.
Parties contesting the three Beirut consitutencies, which will be the first to go to the polls, must announce their lists of candidates by the end of Friday.
The elections are to be held in stages on four consecutive Sundays starting May 29.
They come a month after Syrian pulled its troops out of Lebanon after 29 years of domination over its tiny neighbour.
France and the United States pressed Lebanon to hold the elections by the end-of-the-month deadline set by the constitution.
French ambassador Bernard Emie and his US counterpart Jeffrey Feltman drove the message home in separate meetings with Miqati Thursday, shortly after his return home from talks in New York with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The international community fears that a poll delay would create instability, following last month's Syrian troop withdrawal.
"A delay in the polls could lead to another and then we will see extension after extension of the outgoing parliament," EU ambassador Patrick Renaud told French radio RFI.
An Arab diplomatic source added: "A delay could lead to new tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, whose political influence and sense of responsibility will gain from elections being held on time."
His remarks came as a string of blasts near Israeli positions in the disputed Shebaa Farms district prompted retaliatory machine-gun fire across the international border.
At least six blasts, probably caused by rocket fire from southern Lebanon, rocked the area in the mid-afternoon, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.
Lebanese police said a house in the village of Kfarshouba near the Shebaa Farms was damaged by the Israeli retaliation but there were no casualties.
Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz earlier warned Lebanon that Israel held it responsible for maintaining peace along the border following at least two explosions in 24 hours inside Israel.
Israel ended its occupation of southern Lebanon in May 2000 and the Shiite movement Hezbollah controls virtually all the area along the border. Syria pulled its troops out of Lebanon last month.
Hezbollah has vowed to liberate the Shebaa Farms district. Seized from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war along with the rest of the Golan Heights, the Shebaa Farms are now claimed by Lebanon with Syrian blessing.
05/13/2005 13:27 GMT