Lebanese Ministry of Information
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri Monday kicked off a wide range of consultations with top leaders aimed at ending the vacuum in the country’s top Christian post amid sharp differences between the rival factions on who should be Lebanon’s next president.
Hariri traveled to north Lebanon where he met with Marada Movement leader MP Sleiman Frangieh at the latter’s summer house in the town of Bneshaai.
“Discussions centered on the presidential election and all the means to hold it,” a statement said after the meeting which was attended by Hariri’s chief of staff, Nader Hariri, and his adviser former MP Ghattas Khoury, Culture Minister Raymond Areiji, former Minister Youssef Saadeh and Frangieh’s son, Tony.
The statement said the viewpoints were identical and “the two sides agreed on the need to widen a range of contacts and consultations with all political parties with a view to electing a president and reactivating the work of constitutional institutions.”
Hariri, who returned to Beirut Saturday after spending nearly two months abroad, is expected to also meet with Speaker Nabih Berri, MP Walid Jumblatt and the Future Movement’s March 14 allies for the same purpose. It was not immediately clear whether Hariri would also meet with Frangieh’s presidential rival, MP Michel Aoun.
Hariri will preside over the weekly meeting of the Future Movement’s parliamentary bloc Tuesday during which the bloc is expected to reaffirm its commitment to Frangieh’s candidacy for the presidency against Aoun’s presidential bid.
Hariri’s consultations come amid bleak signs ruling out any breakthrough in the presidential election deadlock from Wednesday’s Parliament session, while attention is focused on the Free Patriotic Movement and whether it will carry out its threat to stage street protests against the legislature’s failure to elect Aoun as president.
However, FPM officials said that they were still optimistic that the Future bloc would eventually agree to elect Aoun as president.
“So far, the atmosphere is optimistic with regard to Future support for Gen. Aoun’s candidacy. We are still waiting for a final answer from [former] Prime Minister Hariri to Gen. Aoun’s candidacy,” MP Ziad Aswad from Aoun’s parliamentary Change and Reform bloc told The Daily Star. He said contacts between the FPM and the Future Movement were ongoing over the presidential deadlock.
Aoun, who is backed for the presidency by Hezbollah and some of its March 8 allies and the Lebanese Forces, has been counting on support from Hariri to boost his chances for being elected as president.
“We are seriously betting on Hariri’s stance on the presidential election. A major event will take place in this respect,” former Minister Salim Joreisati from the FPM told a local TV station. He did not elaborate, but said that a political “earthquake” would happen to rectify the Taif Accord.
Aswad said that while waiting for Hariri’s answer, the FPM is going ahead with its preparations for street protests “if Parliament fails to elect Gen. Aoun as president.”
The FPM had previously said the street protests over alleged marginalization of Christians in state posts and the failure to abide by the National Charter on equal power sharing between Muslims and Christians would start on Sept. 28 and Oct. 13.
“The street protests may not necessarily begin Wednesday. They could begin Wednesday, but definitely on Oct. 13,” Aswad said, refusing to give details on whether the protests would include the closure of major roads and civil obedience.
The Parliament session, the 45th attempt in more than two years to elect a president, is doomed to fail like all previous ones over a lack of quorum, as the opposing March 8 and March 14 parties remain divided in their support for Aoun and Frangieh.
Aswad said that he did not expected the Parliament session to result in the election of a president, indicating that lawmakers from Aoun’s bloc, Hezbollah’s bloc and some of its March 8 allies would maintain the boycott of sessions they have been exercising for more than two years, thwarting a quorum.
The Future bloc last week staunchly rejected separate calls by Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces to elect Aoun as president as the only way to end the presidential vacancy and avert the FPM’s threatened street protests.
Telecommunications Minister Boutros Harb said Lebanon would continue to face a presidential deadlock as long as the FPM insisted on electing Aoun as president.
He said the Parliament session to elect a president is destined to fail like the previous ones because of the failure to convince Hariri to endorse Aoun for the presidency.
“We will continue to revolve in a vicious circle as long as we are faced with the choice of either electing Aoun [as president] or a vacuum,” Harb said in an interview with the Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5). He added that while the FPM has every right to hold a “democratic movement” to express its position, he warned against the party’s attempts to impose Aoun as president through “undemocratic means.”
The Kataeb Party, which opposes Aoun’s election as president, said the Parliament session should secure a quorum to elect a president. “The session must be a constitutional process without blackmail and sharing of spoils,” said a statement issued after the weekly meeting of the party’s Political Bureau chaired by party leader MP Sami Gemayel.
“No one has the power to disrupt the country and no one has the authority to blackmail the Lebanese and distribute or withhold constitutional positions,” it added.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Tammam Salam has not yet called for the weekly Cabinet session scheduled Thursday pending the outcome of contacts with a number of political blocs, amid the FPM ministers’ continuing boycott of Cabinet sessions over the extension of senior military officials’ terms.
“So far, there is no final decision on the fate of this week’s Cabinet session as contacts are ongoing,” a source close to Salam told The Daily Star Monday night, without ruling out the possibility of canceling the session to avoid a further split within an already divided executive body.
Earlier this month, ministers of Hezbollah, the Marada Movement and the Tashnag Party did not attend a Cabinet session in solidarity with the FPM’s two ministers who have been boycotting Cabinet sessions in protest over key military postings.
Defying the FPM’s strong objections, Defense Minister Samir Moqbel has signaled he would extend Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi’s term, which expires on Sept. 29, for one year.
