Lebanese majority leader Saad Hariri is gathering support of regional players to ensure his election to be the new prime minister, local As-Safier daily reported Wednesday.
Hariri returned to Beirut at dawn Wednesday from Cairo after he visited Saudi Arabia last week and a Saudi envoy will soon visit Syria to discuss the Lebanese parliament speaker election on Thursday and the formation of a new government, it said, Xinhua reported.
The report said "Saad Hariri will surely become the new prime minister, while the Lebanese parliament will re-elect Thursday Speaker Nabih Berri for the fifth term."
During the parliamentary elections on June 7, the pro-Western coalition March 14 won 71 seats in the 128-seat parliament, over the Hezbollah-led alliance March 8 of 57 seats, which is backed by Iran and Syria.
After the election, the cabinet of outgoing Prime Minister Fouad Seniora has become a caretaker one until a new government is formed.
Meanwhile, Al-Akhbar daily quoted Arab sources as saying that " Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak supports Hariri's nomination for the post, within the framework of Saudi-Egyptian agreement and a non-objection attitude from Syria."
The daily quoted Lebanese sources as saying that a summit is likely to take place between the Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul- Aziz and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in an attempt to convince Syria to cooperate with the Hariri government.
A meeting between Lebanese Shiite armed group Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and Hariri is also likely to be held soon, which is expected to defuse some four years of animosity and sporadic clashes between the two sides, according to the daily.
The tense relation between the two sides emerged following the car bomb assassination of then Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14, 2005, in which Syria was accused of a role. Damascus denied any involvement.
Last month, a German news magazine said "Hezbollah, not Syria, was behind the assassination of Hariri," which was rejected by many Lebanese parties who insisted that such claim may spark internal disputes.