BEIRUT: Hezbollah Sunday stood firm on its support for MP Michel Aoun for the presidency, defying local and foreign calls for the election of a consensus candidate to end the deadlock that has left Lebanon without a head of state for nearly 10 months.
In sharp contrast, the Future Movement warned that Aoun’s insistence on his presidential bid was blocking efforts to reach an agreement between the rival political factions over the presidency.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said Future’s dialogue with Hezbollah was making progress, but the presidential election is “a regional issue.”
“The dialogue must constitute a gateway for the logic of compromise. But it should be accompanied by a [favorable] regional situation,” Machnouk said during a meeting with Middle East experts and researchers at leading think tank centers in Washington.
Machnouk, currently on a four-day visit to Washington for talks with U.S. officials on fighting terrorism, said: “Our political party [Future Movement] has been able to put an end to the proliferation of terrorist ideology within the Sunni society. The talk – myth – about an environment accommodating [jihadis] no longer exists.”
MP Mohammad Raad, head of Hezbollah’s bloc in Parliament, said his party was confident that the presidential vacuum would eventually be filled with a candidate who would safeguard the resistance.
“We are now in a phase in which the country is oscillating between a presidential vacancy, obstruction of constitutional institutions and the threat of takfiri terrorism,” Raad said in a memorial ceremony in the southern town of Kafra, referring to Syria-based jihadis threatening to destabilize Lebanon. “But eventually, we will fill the presidential vacancy with [a president] who can safeguard the recovery path and the resistance.”
He added that Hezbollah has chosen Aoun as its sole candidate for the presidency and that the March 14 coalition, which is backing Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea for the country’s top Christian post, must ponder this option and decide.
“There is an equation in the country that requires national understanding in order to fill the [presidential] vacancy. We have presented our viewpoint on this understanding and named our candidate whom we assume will serve the national path of the resistance, recovery, internal security and stability,” Raad said, in a clear allusion to Aoun, the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement which is linked in a political alliance with Hezbollah. “The other [March 14] side will have to contemplate, think and decide.”
The March 14 coalition, led by the Future Movement, has rejected Aoun’s candidacy, arguing that he cannot be viewed as a consensus candidate for the presidency because of his alliance with Hezbollah.
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, head of the Future Movement, has called for the election of a consensus candidate as the only way to end the presidential vacuum.
But a defiant Aoun has vowed not to withdraw from the presidential race, contending that because he headed the largest Christian bloc in Parliament, he was the most qualified candidate for the presidency.
Future MP Mohammad Qabbani warned that Aoun’s insistence on seeking the presidency was blocking an agreement between the March 8 and March 14 parties to elect a president.
“So far, Gen. Michel Aoun is still upholding his candidacy [for the presidency] on the basis that ‘either I will be elected president or no one else will.’ This is what is obstructing any presidential agreement,” Qabbani told the Voice of Lebanon radio station.
He blamed Iran for blocking the election of a president. “The red light in the presidential election issue is coming from Iran,” Qabbani said. He added that electing a successor to former President Michel Sleiman should be done “without any foreign intervention or influence.”
Geagea also accused Iran of obstructing the presidential vote. “The reason for the [presidential] vacuum is a very clear Iranian decision: Either the election of a president fully supportive [of Iran] or no presidential election will be held. This is what happened,” Geagea said in a YouTube interview.
He charged that Hezbollah was preventing the building of the Lebanese state. “What is blocking the rise of the state in Lebanon is the presence of Hezbollah as a statelet within a state,” he said.
Separately, Prime Minister Tammam Salam said Arab solidarity is “a very pressing issue “in light of dangers threatening the region’s states and their peoples. Speaking to visitors at his Mseitbeh residence, he said Lebanon would raise the issue of solidarity during the Arab summit to be held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on March 28. – with additional reporting by Hasan Lakkis
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