Huge crowds turned out in Beirut today for the funeral of an anti-Syrian MP whose assassination this week could derail a tense parliamentary vote to choose a new Lebanese president.

Pallbearers threaded their way through a forest of Lebanese flags as they carried the coffins of Antoine Ghanem and his two bodyguards through the Furn el-Chebbak district, where the Phalange Party MP had his constituency.

“Ya habibi (my love), Ya habibi,” cried out his widow, Lola, as his coffin, draped with a Lebanese flag, left the Lebanese Canadian hospital where he was taken after a car bomb attack on Wednesday in which five people were killed and around 70 wounded.

The MP's funeral was held amid heavy security at a Maronite Catholic church, while thousands mourned in the surrounding streets, festooned with white ribbons.

As loudspeakers blasted out patriotic songs, men and women waved party flags from their balconies while on the streets below women dressed in black waved handkerchiefs in a sign of grief.

Boy scouts carried wreaths, while party members marched past in khaki trousers and beige T-shirts, many holding banners with messages such as “We will not kneel."

As the coffins arrived at the church, applause broke out and the church bells tolled as government MPs and Cabinet minsters joined Ghanem’s family for the service.

The Phalange Party was the main political group with a military arm during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war. In November, another Phalange Party member, the Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, was killed on a Beirut street.

Apart from Ghanem and his guards, the other two victims of Wednesday's blast were a grandmother drinking coffee with the family on her balcony and a young executive driving home from work.

Leaders from all sides of the political spectrum have vowed to go ahead with the controversial presidential vote scheduled for next Tuesday, despite the assassination, which drew condemnation from around the world.

President Bush condemned what he called “a tragic pattern” of attacks against champions of “an independent and democratic Lebanon” while UN chief Ban Ki Moon condemned a “brutal assassination".

The election comes amid political deadlock between the Western-backed cabinet and the pro-Damascus opposition. Pro-government MPs in Beirut have pointed a finger of blame at Syria, which denied any involvement and said the bombing was a “criminal act” aimed at undermining efforts at a rapprochement with Lebanon.

Hezbollah, the leading party in the opposition, said the assassination was “a blow to the country’s security and stability as well as any attempt at reconciliation” and called for feuding political parties to show unity.

Fouad Siniora, the Prime Minister, urged the United Nations to investigate Ghanem’s killing as part of its probe into similar murders of anti-Syrian figures, including the former premier Rafiq Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005.

Fearing for his life, Ghanem, 64, had fled into exile following the assassination in June of another anti-Syrian MP, and returned to Lebanon only on Sunday. He was the eighth anti-Syrian politician to be assassinated since Hariri was killed in February 2005.

Ghanem’s death reduced the government’s support in parliament to 68 out of the remaining 127 MPs, with numbers set to play a key role in the presidential vote.

Senior Phalangists said that the attack was clearly aimed at cutting the number of pro-government MPs to derail the vote, since a candidate - who by convention must come from the Maronite Christian community - needs a two-thirds majority to be elected president from a first round of voting, while a simple majority is enough in any later round.

An election can be held right up until the final deadline of November 24, but if the president’s seat is left vacant, his powers are automatically transferred to the government.

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