A parliamentary session to elect a new Lebanese president has been postponed for a week amid continuing deadlock between rival factions.
Parliament had been scheduled to meet this morning to pick a successor to pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, whose term ends at midnight.
But it was widely expected that the session would be postponed as the ruling coalition and the Hezbollah-led opposition have been unable to agree on a candidate.
The standoff has prompted fears of a power vacuum or the formation of two rival governments, as was the case at the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
The army have been deployed heavily in the capital, with tanks and troops at all major intersections, and the downtown area where the parliament building is located has been declared off-limits.
The ruling coalition had called on all MPs to attend the session but the opposition said it would boycott the vote.
Four recent sessions to pick a successor to Mr Lahoud have already been called off.
The standoff began after the Shia militant group, empowered by its 34-day war with Israel last year, pulled its five ministers from the cabinet in November 2006 to gain more representation in government.
The crisis, the worst since the end of the civil war, is widely seen as an extension of the regional confrontation pitting the United States against Iran and Syria.
