Lebanon's President has begun talks with parliamentary deputies on forming a new government.
Speculation is mounting that Emile Lahoud will name a pro-Syrian prime minister in a step sure to anger the anti-Syrian opposition who pressured him to resign in the first place.
Today Syrian troops continued to redeploy to eastern Lebanon in the first stage of a two-phase pullout.
President Lahoud, buoyed by a mass rally in support of his Syrian backers, began consultations with parliamentarians likely to keep Syria's political grip on its tiny neighbour.
Speaker Nabih Berri's bloc named Omar Karami as prime minister, as did the deputies of guerrilla group Hizbollah. Mr Karami resigned as prime minister last week after huge anti-Syrian protests in Beirut but stayed on as caretaker.
Other pro-Syrian deputies also named him, making it all but certain Mr Karami would be reinstated to lead the country to elections in May.
Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese flooded central Beirut yesterday for a pro-Syrian rally called by the Hizbollah militant group that dwarfed previous protests demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops.
