BEIRUT, Lebanon - Lebanon's former president Amin Gemayel on Friday announced he will run in disputed August 5 parliamentary by-elections to replace his son, Pierre Gemayel, who was assassinated in Beirut last November.

"I am a candidate for the deputy's seat in the Metn (mountains northeast of Beirut). Isn't it strange that the father is succeeding his son?" a visibly moved Gemayel asked a televised press conference.

Pierre Gemayel, an anti-Syrian MP and supporter of the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, was gunned down on November 21 in a suburb north of the Lebanese capital.

The parliamentary majority blamed Syria for the killing, despite repeated denials from Damascus of any involvement in a string of attacks on anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon since the February 2005 assassination of five-time former premier Rafiq Hariri.

Siniora's government has decided to hold partial elections in the Metn and in Beirut for the two seats vacated by the murders of Gemayel and of Walid Eido, another MP who was killed in a Beirut car bombing on June 13.

Lebanon's Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud has refused to counter-sign the government's decree on holding the by-elections, on the grounds the cabinet has been "illegitimate" since the resignation in November of six pro-Syrian ministers.

Gibrane Tueni, a third member of the anti-Syrian majority in parliament, which is tasked with electing the next president by a September deadline, was assassinated in December 2005 and replaced by his father Ghassan Tueni with the seat uncontested. -AFP