Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called for calm yesterday as his cabinet assumed executive powers in the absence of a president.

The presidential palace was left empty for the first time in nine years when outgoing head of state Emile Lahoud's mandate expired at 11 p.m. on Friday.

Parliament had failed to find a successor acceptable to the anti-Syrian ruling coalition and the opposition led by pro-Syrian Hezbollah.

"When the presidency is vacant, the powers of the presidency devolve to the cabinet... which is the legitimate and constitutional cabinet," Siniora told a news conference after meeting the patriarch of the Maronite Christian church, Nasrallah Sfeir.

"There is nothing to worry about... Our natural concern is to work on how to... complete the presidential election. None of the Lebanese, with myself at the forefront, will accept that there not be a president for the Republic."

But the opposition, led by the Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, says the country no longer has any recognised executive.