BEIRUT, June 14    - Lebanon's Christian leader Michel Aoun said on Tuesday he would consider running for president after he won the third round of the country's general election.

But the 70-year-old former army general repeated his opposition to demands for the resignation of President Emile Lahoud before a successor had been named.

"I have an ambition to implement my programme," Aoun told Reuters Television in an interview on Tuesday.

"If becoming a president would help me do this then why not? But if I had to choose between the presidency and my programme, I would choose the latter," he said.

Aoun has vowed to tackle corruption in state institutions and introduce economic reform to rein in a ballooning $34 billion (18.8 billion pound) public debt.

Aoun-backed candidates won 15 out of 16 seats in Sunday's polls in Lebanon's Christian heartland of the North Metn and Byblos-Kesrwan districts northwest of Beirut.

Among those who lost to him was Nassib Lahoud, touted as one of the opposition's presidential hopefuls, leaving Aoun as the main Christian political force in Lebanon.

"I am a national leader who represents Christians," he said. "Yes I am proud of my victory in Christian-dominated districts but I am still committed to all Lebanese."

Lahoud's Fate

Aoun was an interim military ruler when he was forced into exile after his failed "war of liberation" to remove Syrian forces from Lebanon was crushed in 1990.

He returned to a hero's welcome in May, two weeks after Syrian troops left. They withdrew from Lebanon in April after the assassination of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri sparked street protests and intensified international pressure.

Since then, electoral alliances and political ambitions have split the forces once united in demanding the withdrawal.

"I returned wanting to cooperate with those who call themselves opposition but I found myself facing isolation," Aoun said, adding that he questioned his rivals' calls for Lahoud's resignation.

"We are against uncalculated moves," he said. "When (they) say we do not want Lahoud then we want to know who will come after him, what his programme is and why Lahoud is going."

Opposition leaders have repeatedly called for Lahoud's ouster after Hariri's killing and after the assassination of prominent anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir earlier in June.

Lahoud has two more years in office after the Lebanese parliament, under pressure from Syria, voted in 2004 to extend his six-year term by another three years.

Aoun said his bloc was working to win more seats in the fourth and last election round in north Lebanon on Sunday.

"But we may also lose. He who does not accept defeat is not a free man," he said. (Reuters)