BEIRUT - Lebanese lawmakers failed for a fourth time to choose a new head of state on Thursday and will try again in a week's time, only three days before President Michel Suleiman's term ends.
If the next round on May 22 fails, it will create a power vacuum in a country that desperately needs leadership to deal with a spillover of violence from neighboring Syria, more than a million refugees from the civil war there, and a budget deficit close to 10 percent of the size of its economy.
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Any candidate would have to get support from the two main political blocs - Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah's March 8 alliance and the rival Sunni-led March 14 coalition - to win the necessary majority from parliament's 128 deputies.
But the two alliances support different sides in neighboring Syria, where Sunni rebels are fighting to overthrow Hezbollah ally President Bashar al-Assad, entrenching divisions in Lebanon.
