Lebanese opposition parties are rushing to agree on one candidate for the presidency in order to block the path of the candidate from Hezbollah and its allies.
The battle of the last hours is being waged by the Lebanese opposition on the eve of the plenary session of the House of Representatives dedicated to the election of a new president of the republic.
27 days into the constitutional deadline for presidential elections, attention will turn to the Lebanese parliament on Thursday to elect a new president. At the invitation of the president of the Nabi Berry Council.
Two days ago, Berry unexpectedly invited parliamentarians to elect a president at 11 am tomorrow, Thursday (Lebanese time), which caused confusion among the parliamentary blocs, which had not decided on their candidacy for the presidency.
However, opposition political sources revealed that “Forces (whose parliamentary bloc includes 19 deputies), Socialist (9 deputies) and Kataeb (5 deputies) parties, in addition to representatives of the Forces for Change (13 deputies), and some independent candidates have so far agreed Minister’s Name: Former lawyer Salah Khanin and head of the independence movement MP Michel Moawad.
Sources said: “Two candidates, Khanin and Moawad, are closest to these parties and the name of one of them will be put forward to go to the session and vote for him.”
In his comment, the chief of staff for external relations of the Party of Forces, former minister Richard Kuyumdzhyan said: “We are looking for a single candidate with the opposition parties, with whom we can fight the presidential battle.”
In an exclusive interview with Al Ain al Akhbar, Qayyumjian added: “We are trying to combine the efforts and views of the opposition, sovereign blocs, independents, new representatives and other blocs to agree on a single candidate. .”
The head of the external relations apparatus of the Party of Forces stressed that “the atmosphere is positive and inspires optimism regarding the achievement of one candidate, who will be voted for at tomorrow’s meeting.”
He continued: “We meet with everyone who meets with the project of creating a state in Lebanon and a strong democratic republic open to the Arab and Western world, in contrast to the project of Hezbollah.
Combined with opposition efforts to agree on the identity of the next president, there is no clear agreement between Hezbollah’s allies and the presidential candidate’s power group.
This is reinforced by the statement of the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Gebran Bassil, at a press conference on Wednesday that “the parliamentary bloc (strong Lebanon and includes 18 deputies) does not yet have a candidate to support it,” adding: “We will vote at the meeting Thursday with a blank sheet of paper. We have any candidate we support so far, and the bloc has prepared a paper with a different approach to the presidential question, which we will talk about next week.”
At the same time, observers pointed out that the leader of the Marada movement, former minister Suleiman Frangieh, is the closest candidate to Hezbollah and the Amal movement.
Two-thirds of the deputies (86 out of 128 deputies) must be present to ensure a quorum in the first session for the election of the President of Lebanon.
If this agreement is not reached, Lebanon will face a repeat of the scenario of the last presidential elections, when the country witnessed a presidential vacuum that lasted two and a half years as a result of Hezbollah and its allies disrupted the quorum, before an agreement was reached that led to the election of Michel Aoun as president.
In light of the delicate balance within parliament resulting from the parliamentary elections held last May, it seems difficult to secure a quorum for a session to elect a president without reaching some sort of agreement or definite settlement among the largest number of parliamentary blocs.
