Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Saad Hariri’s decision to quit yesterday as Lebanon’s prime minister-designate is aimed at forcing opposition parties to scale back demands in talks over the formation of a national unity government, analysts said.

“It’s a political maneuver that throws the ball into the opposition’s court to compel them to make concessions on government portfolios,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, author of a forthcoming book, “The Iran connection: The Alliance with Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.”

President Michel Suleiman is likely to ask Hariri, as Lebanon’s leading Sunni Muslim politician, to make another attempt to form a cabinet, analysts said. Hariri’s coalition won 71 of 128 seats in June 7 parliamentary elections, while the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah and its allies took 57.

Bickering over cabinet portfolios since the elections has impeded efforts to form a government. Hariri, 39, submitted 30 cabinet nominees to Suleiman on Sept. 7, based on a power- sharing accord which Lebanese politicians accepted in July. The accord gave neither the ruling pro-Western coalition a decisive majority nor the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and its Christian allies the power of veto, which they have in the outgoing government.

Under the agreement, Hariri’s coalition was to name 15 ministers for a cabinet alongside 10 loyal to Hezbollah and its allies. The president would have chosen the remaining five.

‘Impossible Conditions’

In a statement broadcast on Lebanese television yesterday, Hariri said he hoped his decision would pave the way for new talks among politicians. The Hezbollah-led opposition had set “impossible conditions” for the cabinet lineup, he said.

If Hariri is asked again to form a government, he won’t stick to the power-sharing accord agreed on in July, Ahmad Fatfat, a lawmaker in Hariri’s coalition, told Bloomberg News yesterday.

In Lebanon’s power-sharing system, the president has to be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the Parliament speaker a Shiite.

“Unless Hariri says he is not interested in the premiership and he supports someone else, politically it is not feasible for the president to go over his head,” said Chibli Mallat, a constitutional lawyer and professor at the University of Utah and Saint Joseph’s University in Lebanon.

“Since the opposition is playing hardball then he’s going to play hardball,” Mallat said. Standing down is “a negotiating ploy because, as the political atmosphere stands today, there is no chance for anyone else to be appointed but him.”

Clash With Aoun

During the coalition negotiations, Hariri clashed with former General Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian and ally of the Hezbollah and Shiite Amal movements that form the opposition.

Aoun, whose 27-seat bloc is the biggest Christian group in the legislature, had initially demanded seven ministerial positions. A sticking point was Aoun’s insistence that his son- in-law, Gebran Bassil, be re-appointed telecommunications minister. Hariri repeatedly refused.

Bassil said that Hariri’s resignation was the result of his “his inability to form a national unity cabinet,” and that “no one can marginalize or exclude a party, a major faction of the Lebanese people.”

Hezbollah’s al-Manar television said the telecommunications portfolio was an obstacle to a compromise. The group operates an autonomous communications network.

An attempt by the incumbent government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to close the network last year prompted Hezbollah to send its militia into west Beirut neighborhoods. The ensuing clashes left at least 80 people dead and ended with Hezbollah and its allies being granted veto power in a unity government.

Unity Government

Hariri, the son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, promised to form a national unity government after winning the election, while stressing that he didn’t intend to grant veto power to Hezbollah.

“If Hariri wants to be head of government, he wants to have enough influence to be able get something done and to be able to run the government,” said Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Center in Beirut.

“Having won the election, he ended up losing the government and he felt that he was getting a government he doesn’t have a majority in and certainly doesn’t control.”

The U.S. called for both sides to resolve the impasse quickly. Asked if the U.S. was concerned about stability in the country because of the delay, Philip J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman in Washington, said, “We would like to see a government put in place sooner rather than later.”

Under the constitution, Suleiman must again conduct parliamentary consultations with the aim of finding a prime minister-designate. In 1969, it took Prime Minister Rashid Karami nine months to form a government.

To contact the reporter on this story: Massoud A. Derhally in Amman, Jordan, at mderhally@bloomberg.net.

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