BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hezbollah said on Friday a proposal by U.S. President George W. Bush for Lebanon’s Western-backed governing coalition to elect a new president unilaterally was a threat to the country’s stability.

A Lebanese armoured personnel carrier army secures a street near the parliament in downtown Beirut December 17, 2007. Hezbollah said on Friday a proposal by President George W. Bush for Lebanon's Western-backed governing coalition to elect a new president unilaterally was a threat to the country's stability. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi (LEBANON)

Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters that Bush’s comments on Thursday had further complicated efforts to forge a deal between the governing coalition and the Syria-backed opposition, locked in a power struggle for more than a year.

Parliament is due to convene on Saturday in the 10th attempt at electing a successor to pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, whose term expired on November 23.

France, which has been leading mediation efforts, told Syria it hoped the vote would succeed. But Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun said it would not take place. “There is no understanding and the talks are severed,” he said.

The nine previous sessions have failed because a two-thirds quorum in parliament can only be secured by an agreement between the anti-Syrian ruling group and the Hezbollah-led opposition.

The rivals have agreed on army chief General Michel Suleiman as the next head of state but have not been able to conclude a broader deal on how to share power in a new cabinet.

“Matters are complicated and Bush’s position has increased their complexity,” Hezbollah’s Fadlallah said, adding it was almost certain that there would not be an election in Saturday’s session “because we have not yet reached an understanding”.

Only Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a leading opposition figure, can officially postpone the session.

“INTERFERING IN LEBANON”

Accusing Syria of interfering in Lebanon, Bush said that if the deadlock over the presidency continued, the ruling coalition should vote using its simple majority of MPs.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy told his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad in a phone call that Saturday’s election must go ahead as planned, Sarkozy’s spokesman said on Friday.

The opposition wants guarantees it will have veto power in the new cabinet to be formed once Suleiman is elected. Majority leader Saad al-Hariri this week said he was opposed to the idea.

Governing coalition leaders have yet to comment on Bush’s proposal. They have lately backed away from threats of a unilateral vote and have stated their commitment to reaching consensus with the opposition over the presidency.

Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and listed by the United States as a terrorist group, has previously warned that a unilateral move by the majority to elect a president would be tantamount to a coup.

“The American administration wants to embroil who it considers its allies in Lebanon in choices which they already know threaten stability in Lebanon, strike at national unity and spread chaos as happened in Iraq,” Fadlallah said.

Hezbollah’s deputy chief Naim Kassem also accused Bush of proposing the absolute majority idea “without caring about the repercussions of this issue”.

Fadlallah added Hezbollah was committed to a deal with the governing coalition and blamed the United States for obstructing mediation efforts led by France.

Damascus said on Thursday it was working to facilitate the presidential election. Hariri responded in a statement that Syria, which dominated Lebanon until 2005, had effectively announced that the vote “will not happen”.