An assassinated anti-Syrian Christian lawmaker was buried today after thousands of mourners marched behind his coffin in east Beirut.
Supporters of the Christian Phalange party carry the coffin of assassinated anti-Syrian legislator Antoine Ghanem during his funeral in eastern Beirut
The killing of Antoine Ghanem (64) in a car bomb attack on Wednesday - the eighth anti-Syrian figure killed in two-and-a-half years - has raised political tensions, and a leader of his pro-government party urged the opposition not to block the election of a new president.
The anti-Syrian ruling coalition and opposition parties that include the pro-Syrian Hizbullah movement are locked in a 10-month-old tussle, and the presidential election is seen as a crucial step towards ending their standoff.
Parliament is due to meet on Tuesday to elect pro-Syrian Emile Lahoud's successor, but the vote is unlikely to take place because of the lack of a two-thirds quorum, achievable only if the opposing camps agree on a compromise candidate beforehand.
Mr Ghanem's death has reduced the ruling Sunni-Christian-Druze alliance to 68 seats in the 128-seat parliament, a slim majority over the Shia-Christian opposition, which has threatened to boycott any session if there is no deal over a new president.
A number of anti-Syrian figures have been killed in Lebanon since the 2005 murder of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, whose death and that of others the Western-backed governing coalition blames on Damascus.
Syria has condemned the attacks.