The coming week will feature intense consultations by the March 14 bloc that will revive its initiative to find a consensus candidate for the presidency, sources in the coalition said.
The sources said the consultations follow former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s meeting with Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai in Rome, in which he promised to pursue a resolution to the presidential vacuum following the renewal of Parliament’s mandate. They also follow Speaker Nabih Berri’s declaration that “it is now time for a presidential consensus” after the mandate had been extended.
Lebanon has been without a head of state since former President Michel Sleiman’s term ended on May 25. Parliament extended its own mandate for two years and seven months last week, citing security concerns and the political vacuum that would be left if its term ended with no consensus over a new electoral law.
The March 14 sources said the extension would not last for that long because movement would begin on the presidential front this week, with Berri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt’s backing.
The contacts will focus on identifying consensus candidates with the March 8 bloc. The discussions will begin with the return of Jumblatt from his tour in Moscow, where he is expected to have discussed with Russian officials the various negotiations surrounding regional issues, including Lebanon.
The sources said Hezbollah would no longer have to back Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun as a consensus candidate, since the party declared him their candidate in a speech by its Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah last week. The endorsement will dampen any American or Saudi backing for Aoun’s candidacy due to the ongoing regional confrontation between the latter and Iran, the sources said.
Hariri will personally contact Western capitals that have a stake in Lebanon on the presidential issue, as well as Lebanese leaders, while his chief of staff Nader Hariri will handle the details of the negotiations, The Daily Star has learnt.
Meanwhile, Western ambassadors have urged Lebanese political leaders to reach consensus on the election of a president soon, and to avoid seeking outside involvement in the issue because foreign powers are not likely to interfere in the issue.
An influential Lebanese diplomatic source said the consultations on the presidency will, if they are unsuccessful, fill time while officials await the outcome of regional and international negotiations.
The negotiations in question are the U.S.-Iranian nuclear talks with a deadline to reach an agreement of Nov. 21, and the upcoming meeting in China between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Kerry and Lavrov are expected to discuss the possibility of resolving the Syrian crisis through the parameters of the Geneva I meeting that called for a transitional government.
In addition, officials are following the outcome of a meeting between Kerry, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif that could touch upon a broader regional compromise, as countries begin to grasp the enormity of the sectarian crisis.
The diplomatic source said that Lebanese factions are likely to begin seriously negotiating over a consensus president based on the outcomes of these meetings.
No comments:
Post a Comment