BEIRUT - A parliamentary session to elect a Lebanese president has been postponed from Tuesday, March 15, to April 22 amid continued deadlock between rival political leaders, the speaker's office announced Monday.

"Parliament speaker Nabih Berri has decided to postpone the session to April 22 at noon (0900 GMT)," his spokesman Ali Hamdan told AFP.

The decision marks the 17th time since September that a parliament session to elect a successor to pro-Syrian head of state Emile Lahoud has failed amid a standoff between the Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition, backed by Syria and Iran.

The Lebanese presidential crisis is expected to top the agenda in this week's Arab summit in Damascus.

Regional heavyweights Egypt and Saudi Arabia have announced that they will send low-level diplomats to the meeting in retaliation for what they say is Syrian obstruction to the election of a Lebanese president.

Lebanon has been without a president since November, when Lahoud's term ended. The political crisis is the worst since the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

The sharply divided parliament was to meet Tuesday to elect Army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman as a consensus president. His selection is the single issue the U.S.-backed parliamentary majority and the Syrian-backed opposition agree on.

But the two sides remain at loggerheads over power-sharing and the shape of the future cabinet. The parliamentary majority has strongly rejected the opposition's demand for veto power over future government decisions. -Agencies