Two runners on Saad's lists for Beirut's 19 seats have won uncontested when the candidacy-posting deadline in the capital expired at midnight with a total of 51 registered runners in the first round of the elections on May 29.

Dr. Ghazi Youssef, a senior economic advisor of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri, clinched one of the two Shiite Beirut seats unopposed. So did Walid Jumblat's political advisor Ghazi Aridi when no one ran against him for Beirut's single Druze seat.

Both Youssef and Aridi are running on Saad Hariri's list, the formal announcement of which has been delayed for a few days for extended negotiations with other opposition factions, particularly concerning Beirut's only Maronite seat.

Slain President-elect Bashir Gemayel's widow, Solange Gemayel, and Hariri's current legislator Ghattas Khoury are vying for the seat.

Speaker Berri has scheduled a news conference for Saturday to announce his coalition lists with Hizbullah for the entire seats of south Lebanon, except Sidon where incumbents Bahia Hariri and Osama Saad are the major contestants.

Berri has vetoed a proposal by Premier Mikati to remap Lebanon into 15 election provinces to alley Christian fears of being overwhelmed by Muslim vote in southern and northern Lebanon, media reports said. Lebanon is currently divided into 6 provinces.

Berri's intransigence made it absolutely certain the elections will be held within their constitutional timeframe under the jurisdiction of the 2000 law, which the Maronite Church resents.

A unanimous media conviction emerged on Saturday that Patriarch Sfeir's opposition to the 2000 electoral law would stop short of calling a pan-Christian boycott of the polls.