BEIRUT: Hezbollah over the weekend took an unprecedented swipe at President Michel Sleiman, saying the Lebanese leader required “specialized care,” a day after the head of state implicitly slammed the party’s “army, people, resistance” formula as hindering the release of the Cabinet policy statement.
“With all due respect to the office of the president ... the latest speech we heard makes us believe that Baabda Palace in the days left [of the presidency] needs specialized care because its occupant cannot differentiate anymore between gold and wood,” Hezbollah said in a statement Saturday.
During a speech at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK) Friday, Sleiman implicitly urged Hezbollah to cede ground over the divisive tripartite “army, people, resistance” formula, saying all sides needed to avoid clinging “to wooden [inflexible] equations that hinder the birth of this [ministerial] statement.”
Shortly after Hezbollah’s comments, Sleiman reiterated in a Twitter post the need for adherence to the Baabda Declaration, a pact between rival political leaders to distance Lebanon from regional turmoil, particularly in Syria.
“ Baabda Palace needs that the decisions that have been taken unanimously, namely the Baabda Declaration, be recognized,” Sleiman tweeted.
The 2012 agreement reached at the Presidential Palace was breached when Hezbollah acknowledged sending fighters to Syria to back forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
Lebanon’s political rivals have yet to reach a deal over the new Cabinet’s policy statement. The March 14 camp rejects including the “army-people-resistance” formula, which their March 8 rivals insist upon.
Hezbollah’s criticism of the president drew swift reactions from various parties and officials who voiced support to Sleiman.
In a statement Saturday, the Kataeb Party said it rejected “considering the presidency as a [political] side and waving political weapons at it, whether directly or through employing the services of pens and stances.”
“The Kataeb Party stands by the president and supports his national and courageous stances that aim at preserving Lebanon’s sovereignty and its independence,” the statement said.
Interior Minister Ashraf Rifi also said via a Twitter post Saturday evening that he had contacted the president and supported the “national principles” Sleiman spoke of in his speech at USEK.
“I condemn the affront to the president and the post of the presidency,” Rifi said in another post.
Telecoms Minister Boutros Harb also said he was surprised at Hezbollah’s comments.
“It is forbidden to refer to the president as the occupant of Baabda Palace because President Michel Sleiman is the president of all Lebanon,” Harb said in a statement.
Voicing a similar stance, Information Minister Ramzi Joreige said Hezbollah needed “to drop this rhetoric of confrontation.”
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