By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent

BEIRUT, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Lebanon hopes to reap billions of dollars in aid from foreign donors meeting in Paris this week, despite political rifts at home that could abort reform plans.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora wants the "Paris 3" conference on Thursday to deliver money to rescue his debt-laden country's finances, support reforms and help Lebanon recover from last year's war between Israel and Shi'ite Hezbollah guerrillas.

But an opposition call for a general strike on Tuesday aimed at choking normal life, including the port and airport, may dramatise Lebanon's internal conflicts ahead of the conference.

Siniora will probably get substantial pledges, given the strong support he enjoys from the United States, France and Saudi Arabia -- all keen to prevent Lebanon falling under the sway of Hezbollah and its regional allies, Syria and Iran.

Such political motives stir the ire of Siniora's critics.

"This is a government that is evidently so intensively supported by the Western powers that it is not looked upon as a real expression of the will of the Lebanese people," former finance minister Georges Corm told Reuters.

Foreign powers should "stop kidnapping Lebanon's domestic problems and manipulating them in the confrontation between Iran and the U.S., and the war on terrorism", he added.

Reform prospects seem remote in a poisonous political climate as Hezbollah and its Christian allies try to topple a cabinet they say lost its legitimacy when all its Shi'ite members resigned in November, along with one Christian minister.

AID STRINGS

Any new aid will supplement $900 million that donors pledged in August for postwar reconstruction, as well as $1.5 billion deposited with the central bank by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the conflict to keep the Lebanese pound stable.

Siniora has not released any aid target, but local economist Marwan Iskander cited a figure of $7 billion -- $2 billion upfront as budget support, the rest tied to progress on reforms.

Such linkage might not please Hezbollah, whose leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah says foreign assistance is welcome only if it has no strings. He has declared the government reform plan will "sink Lebanon into more debt, taxes, duties and corruption".

Lebanon's political malaise casts doubt over whether Siniora can enact the tax hikes, subsidy cuts and privatisation schemes included in a plan that resembles previous failed reform drives.

European Union and other donors recall with chagrin the failure to fulfill reform promises Lebanon made at the "Paris 2" donor conference in 2002, which netted Beirut $2.4 billion.

An International Monetary Fund mission visited Beirut in December to discuss policies, but won no commitment to a formal IMF programme from a government already under opposition fire.

Lebanon's public debt now exceeds $40 billion, or 180 percent of GDP. Servicing it soaks up half of state spending. The economy, which had been forecast to grow 5-6 percent in 2006, instead shrank 5 percent due to the war with Israel.

Nevertheless, economists say Lebanon faces no imminent financial crisis, such as the one that preceded Paris 2, and some, like Corm, fear that throwing in foreign money is like injecting "morphine" into a system that needs radical reform.

FEARS OF VIOLENCE

Many Lebanese fear the standoff could turn violent at a time when their main governing institutions -- the Christian-held presidency, the Sunni-led executive and the parliament headed by a Shi'ite speaker -- are paralysed or feuding.

Without broad-based support, it is doubtful whether the government can implement its reforms, said Kamal Hamdan, director of the Consultation and Research Institute.

Social tensions could rise if the cabinet pushed through plans to raise value-added tax from 2008 and cut fuel subsidies starting this year, he said, adding that social welfare provisions in the reform plan were not similarly time-bound.

If reforms stall, Lebanon might come under pressure from donors to adopt an IMF programme, Iskander said, although Hezbollah would see this as submission to Western dictates.

Several economists said Siniora's reform plans did not go nearly far enough and some advocated a new path for Lebanon.

Former finance minister Elias Saba flayed the government for perpetuating an economic model favoured by assassinated Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, billionnaire godfather of Lebanon's lavish reconstruction drive after its 1975-90 civil war.

He said Hariri, whose son Saad leads Lebanon's ruling coalition, had spurred the private and public sectors to spend far beyond their income, running up a vast public debt.

Successive governments had favoured the banking and real estate sectors over productive ones, leading to a shrinking economic base and reliance on transfers from abroad.

"This economic model is unsustainable," Saba said.

Iskander lamented what he said was an absence of serious reform in a country suffering anomalies such as a Railways Authority employing 900 people, but no working railways.

"Frankly Lebanon cannot hope to survive and achieve with the programme as it is," he said.

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