Geagea optimist: no civil strife in the horizons

BEIRUT: Despite the troubles that Lebanon is experiencing, no civil strife seems to be in the horizon, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea told Reuters.

"With everything that is going on in the region, look at Lebanon, it is holding together," Geagea, who is the March 14 candidate for president, said in an interview with the news agency. “There is a political decision by all the factions not to play with Lebanon's civil peace, and not to play with Lebanon's existence as a nation.”

However, although remarkable in light of the fierce political enmity between March 14’s leading party, the Future Movement, and March 8’s Hezbollah, Geagea’s optimism was rather cautious.

"So Lebanon as a nation will remain, and civil peace will remain, albeit with the current disturbances that you see,” he said. "I am not more worried than that."

Geagea seemed less confident in the parties’ will to elect a new president, however. Accusing Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement of standing behind the disruption of presidential elections, Geagea said Aoun must act in order to reach agreement.

"I call on General Aoun to reach an agreement with us on a third candidate," he said, despite being pessimistic on the chances of that happening. “He will not retreat.”

Geagea said the presidential controversy went beyond Lebanese borders.

“The issue of the Lebanese presidency is on the table for discussion in the bargaining over the entire Middle East," he said. "Therefore, unfortunately, I don't see presidential elections in the foreseeable future," he said. "We are waiting."

Commenting on Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian war and its impact on public opinion, Geagea stressed that this engagement was a “grievance” that put a great pressure on the Lebanese Sunnis.

"The cause of this grievance must be removed so that the situation in Lebanon stabilizes in a deeply rooted way and not simply because of a political understanding and a political decision not to ignite the situation," he said, reiterating his longstanding call for Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the neighboring country’s war.