The man widely viewed as the heir to the Lebanese democratic movement, Saad Hariri, stayed out of the country during the entire war between Hezbollah and Israel.
His No. 2, Walid Jumblatt, holed up in his ancestral mountain palace. General Michel Aoun, the maverick Maronite Catholic who sees himself as a future president of Lebanon, remained in his villa in the mountainous Christian heartland, and said little.
Meanwhile, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah, despite being a target of the Israeli military, gave frequent speeches from deep inside a bunker.
But now, two weeks into a shaky ceasefire between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israel, some of the big names of Lebanese politics are moving back onto the political stage. The result has been an open round of bitter political infighting and backbiting, with figures from various factions attacking one another in newspapers and on talk shows.
The most vociferous has been Aoun, who called this week for the resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his Cabinet.
The government is dominated by figures from the US-backed groups that banded together in what is known as the March 14 Alliance -- named for the date of their huge protest rally after last year's assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri -- which helped force Syria to end 15 years of domination in Lebanon's politics.
Aoun, who has established a relationship not only with Hezbollah but also with his former nemesis, Syria, also called for a "government of national unity."
That idea, said Minister of Telecommunications Marwan Hamadeh, and a prominent Druse member of the March 14 group, "is in fact a Syrian attempt to topple the government."
Siniora refused to resign, saying: "Let these politicians rest. The government is staying, staying, staying."
In almost the same breath, he claimed Arab nationalist credentials by vowing that "Lebanon will be the last Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel."
Aoun struck back, telling the daily As Safir that "Siniora will pay the price of his stubbornness."
He also accused Siniora of working with "foreign countries" against Lebanon's interests.
"This will happen very soon; he will not have time to pack his things because he will be forced to leave quickly," Aoun said.
He added that he had warned of "dangerous repercussions" if the government did not resign.
"Now we will choose the appropriate time to achieve the desired change in our own way," he asserted, setting off yet another round of recriminations between the March 14 group and his vocal supporters.
Hariri, the son of the assassinated former prime minister, has been slower to try to reclaim his standing. He returned from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere as the cease-fire was being declared, and has made a few speeches.
His deputy, Jumblatt, still in the mountains, conducted a news conference in which he was critical of Hezbollah and asked "to whom will it offer its victory?"
Anyone who wants to wrest the spotlight from Hezbollah and its leader, Nasrallah, faces an uphill battle, given the respect both won throughout the Islamic world for standing up to Israel's military might.
"We are all in awe of Hezbollah," said Jamil Mroue, the publisher of the English-language Daily Star and a secular Shiite.
But like many Western-oriented Lebanese, he is troubled by Hezbollah's militant Islamicism, its ties to Iran and its willingness to maintain a virtual separate state, adding: "At this stage I cannot look at the situation and say there is a glimmer of light."
On Saturday, one of Syria's most important allies here, Nabih Berri, the wily speaker of parliament, moved to smooth the waters by calling for something everyone could agree on: protesting the continued Israeli air and sea blockade.
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