BEIRUT: The name of the new president is less important that the manner in which public service is exercised in Lebanon, Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun said Tuesday.
“The problem is not about electing someone to the presidency of the republic; our problem is about electing a republic, and the survival of this republic,” Aoun said in a news conference following his Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting in Rabieh.
“On this basis, I am ready to bargain with anyone otherwise I am staying in the battle.”
Aoun’s comments came in response to accusations from March 14 forces that said he was not ready to accept anyone other than himself as Lebanon's next president.
Lebanon has been without a head of state since May 25, when Michel Sleiman stepped down at the end of his term.
Since then, political parties have failed to agree on the name of a consensus president with some relating the disagreement to the will of foreign powers.
“The problem cannot be resolved anywhere [in the world] it can only be resolved on Lebanese land,” Aoun noted. “Until the last minute, my struggle will remain against foreign intervention.”
Asked about a possible visit from his fiercest political rival, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, Aoun said: “He is welcome.”
The Christian leader, who is March 8’s candidate for the presidency, said his insistence comes from the behavior of the political class since the end of the civil war.
“After a quick overview on how the political attitude toward us [has been] in the last 15 years, it appears that there is no acknowledgment of our rights,” Aoun said after describing a historical sequence of events where his party was marginalized by political rivals. “As if we are a lost son.”
The Christian leader, who spent 15-years in self-exile in Paris during the Syrian hegemony over Lebanon, criticized the political performance of Lebanon’s leaders, stressing that the positive items of the Taif Accord, to which he once opposed, were never implemented.
“Why [do we have] this regressive path in the exercise of power?” he asked.
He said the political class should rethink how it is governing the country by focusing on transparency, the rule of law, the good use of public money and the implementation of policies that benefit thepublic.
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