Beirut, 16 Nov. (AKI) - In Lebanon demonstrations and sit-ins over rising mazot oil-fuel prices have provoked the biggest political crises to hit Premier Fuad Siniora's government since it took office in June. Mass protests began last Saturday in the country's eastern Bekaa Valley region where the population relies heavily on mazot for cooking and heating. A recent government decision to increase taxes on all fuel has seen the price of mazot shoot up from around 8 dollars for a jerry can to 14 dollars over the last few weeks. This just as winter is setting in.

"I only earn 200 dollars a month, how can I warm up my house for my family," asks Khaled Tayyabji, a municipal worker in the Bekaa Valley town of Baalbek. "During some days in January we use up to one jerry can every day. The government must help us. It cannot allow this."

Opposition parties are demanding that the government scrap the tax, but the dissent has also spread to the ruling coalition with the Islamist Amal and Hezbollah parties coming out against the provision. In particular, Energy Minister, Muhammad Fneish, a member of Hezbollah, which garners much of its supports among Bekaa residents, insists that the government introduce subsidies that will make mazot more affordable.

But Siniora, who has called a cabinet meeting on Thursday to discuss the issue, says he won't budge.

"It's impossible to intervene in this manner [introduce subsidies]," the Prime Minister said on Tuesday, saying the 60 million dollars required to fund a retail price reduction of mazot over the three coldest months of the year are not available.

"If we were to allocate this sum of money then we will only further increase the country's budget deficit and weaken the national economy," Siniora said.

Still, as the politicians continue to squabble over the issue, many Lebanese have resorted to purchasing mazot smuggled from Syria.

Beirut, 16 Nov. "It cost's almost half the price and for me it offers the best solution," says another Baalbek resident, Radwan Sibai.

Further raising the political temperature has been an editorial in the Syrian daily Tishrin, in which the goverment newspaper says it predicts the protests will spread from Bekaa to Beirut and other urban centres,

"Thousand of people will take to the streets... against the Siniora government. He will then fall under the pressure of Lebanese public opinion," Tishrin said.

Such comments have provoked a furious response in the Lebanese media which has accuses Damascus of "stoking the flames" of the protest to continue its policy of meddling in Lebanon's affairs.