I’ve almost lost count of how many times this guy has quit, threatened to quit, and cried in a corner simply because he was on the wrong side of history. Look like this is the last time.

Premier-Designate Omar Karami has resigned the task of forming Lebanon’s new government Wednesday. He made the announcement at a news conference after 7 weeks of futile attempts to put together a viable cabinet lineup. Karami blamed his failure on ‘impossible conditions to meet’ that were put forward by his allies of the Ein El-Tineh coalition of Syria’s loyalists in Lebanon.

Karami’s move leaves Lebanon under the jurisdiction of his caretaker government which resigned in the aftermath of ex-Premier Hariri’s assassination Feb. 14.

Lebanon’s prominent jurists have said a caretaking government has the power to invite the Lebanese to the polls and said officials of such a cabinet would risk being tried before the nation’s constitutional council if they fail to make the call for elections before its May 18 constitutional deadline.

Their verdict overruled a contention by Speaker Berri that a caretaker cabinet can not make the call to the polls.

Karami had also said he was quitting Berri’s Ein El-Tineh coalition, which deals a staggering blow to the camp of Syria’s loyalists.

People are very suspicious of everything that the government is doing, thinking that they are scheming to delay the May elections.

Their discord was ostensibly attributed to the insistence of various loyalist factions within Berri’s Syrian-sponsored Ein El-Tineh’s coalition on snatching the biggest possible portion of spoils of a cabinet supposed to quit within two months if the elections are held on deadline in May.

The main listed spoils gladiators were Suleiman Franjieh, who demanded the health ministry for himself and the environment portfolio for ally Sayed Akl, Druze leader Talal Arslan who refused to retain the ministry of the displaced which has no funds, and Syrian Social Nationalist Party’s Asaad Hardan.

Another contributing factor to the crisis is the clash between Lahoud and Berri over the new electoral law. The president wants it based on the district-as-constituency system and Berri is insisting on proportionality with the province as constituency, according to An Nahar.

“Allies’ Preconditions Thwart Troika Accord on New Government,” roared an 8-column banner-line across An Nahar’s front-page Monday. “What’s happening is perilous in raising the specter of postponing the elections on one count and plunging the country in an economic crisis graver than any other political consideration,” An Nahar analyzed.

Slain ex-Premier Hariri’s Al Mustaqbal newspaper charged the current regime of having invented a new hitch to delay the formation of the new government and create the alibi for calling off the May elections.

The State Department had this to respond:

“The Syrians need to withdraw completely military and intelligence presence,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a Washington briefing Tuesday. “But more important, it’s part of the process of letting the Lebanese decide their own future???????. The Lebanese need to organize elections on time and allow the people to express their views.”

Just keep remembering, the test of any revolution is if free and fair elections are held in a reasonable amount of time.