(Bloomberg) -- Lebanon's parliamentary speaker will call on political parties to open talks on a national unity government if an Arab League summit fails to resolve a four- month deadlock over the election of a new president.

"If the Arab summit doesn't work and provide a solution then Mr. Berri will call for a national dialogue," so that rival factions can discuss forming a national unity government and changing electoral law, Ali Hamdan, spokesman for speaker Nabih Berri, said in a telephone interview from Beirut today.

At the summit set to convene in Damascus, Syria, March 29- 30, the Arab League's 22 member states will discuss violence in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and the impasse in Lebanon that has left the country without a president since November and prevented parliamentarians from meeting 16 times.

Lebanese lawmakers are unlikely to meet tomorrow as scheduled to choose a new president because the pro-Western ruling coalition and the Syrian-backed opposition still haven't agreed on the makeup of the next government, Hamdan said.

"The session is most probably going to be postponed," he said. "It needs a miracle for there to be an agreement."

Lebanon has been without a head of state since Nov. 23, when Syrian-backed Emile Lahoud left office at the end of his term.

Divisions

The pro-Western governing coalition under Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and the Syrian-backed opposition, including the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement and Christian politician Michel Aoun, agree on Michel Suleiman, the army commander-in-chief, as the next president.

They are divided on how to change the constitution to permit a senior public servant to take the post. They also disagree on the make-up of the next cabinet and on who should lead the next government.

The crisis in Lebanon has strained relations between Syria and some Arab states, threatening the success of the summit. Syria, which played a key role in Lebanese politics for three decades, withdrew its army from the country in 2005 after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

In a snub to Syria, Saudi Arabia announced it was sending its ambassador to the Arab League, Ahmad Abdulaziz Qattan, to head its delegation at the summit, Al-Jazeera reported.

Egypt, another regional player, has yet to indicate who will represent it at the summit.

Egyptian Misgivings

"If we hold the Arab summit while Lebanon is not represented by a president or under-represented, then certain Arab powers will not be happy," Egypt's state-run news agency cited Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit as saying today.

If the Lebanese crisis persists, it "will reflect negatively on the success of the summit and I think there will be very weak participation," Aboul Gheit said.

Lebanon's cabinet, which is likely to boycott the summit, will announce its decision tomorrow, Mohammad Shateh, an adviser to Siniora, said in a telephone interview from Beirut.

"A number of cabinet ministers have already said that they are not in favor of Lebanon participating in the summit and you need 16 ministers to say yes and we have only 17 now," Shateh said. "Out of the 17 there is a majority that is against participation."

Prospect of Violence

The dispute in Lebanon has generated the worst crisis since the end of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war and threatens to provoke new violence.

An Arab League foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo on Jan. 6 unanimously backed General Suleiman as president, and called for "immediate" presidential elections. The league proposed the formation of a national unity government, in which no party could veto decisions. It also recommended a new electoral law.

Berri, a leading Shiite member of the opposition, favors an equal distribution of posts in the next government, a plan under which the president, opposition and government get 10 each.

The Siniora government, which holds 67 of 128 seats in parliament, accuses the opposition of thwarting efforts to choose a president under orders from Syria and Iran. The opposition says Siniora's government is a U.S. "puppet."

A two-thirds majority is needed to amend the constitution and allow Suleiman to be elected president. In Lebanon's sectarian governmental system, the president is a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament a Shiite Muslim.

By Massoud A. Derhally