Aoun as president? Not so fast
Hasan Lakkis/The Daily Star/September 29/16
Regardless of whether former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s current flurry of wide consultations with various leaders would lead to resolving the presidential crisis, political sources said that all parliamentary blocs must deal with this development in a positive way and become convinced of the need for an inter-Lebanese accord to end the power vacuum. This is despite the fact that Lebanon’s presidential election has always been influenced by regional and international factors since the independence in 1943.
Parliamentary sources said that Hariri’s serious efforts to end the presidential vacuum, now in its third year, were clearly manifested in two messages he sent from the northern town of Bneshaai after his meeting Monday with Marada Movement leader MP Sleiman Frangieh and also from the statement issued by the parliamentary Future bloc after its weekly meeting chaired by Hariri at his Beirut Downtown residence Tuesday.
The two messages did not reflect the Future Movement’s insistence on adopting Frangieh’s candidacy for the presidency, signaling a call for searching for another candidate acceptable to all the parties, the sources said.
The sources noted that until now, the contacts and declared attitudes by Hariri and other political blocs did not lead to nominating a third candidate other the two main rivals, MP Michel Aoun and Frangieh.
However, the sources said signs indicate that Frangieh’s receding chances are serving Aoun’s presidential aspirations.
The same sources point out that hurdles that prevent Aoun from reaching the presidential palace in Baabda are not easy to eliminate for the following reasons:
So far, there is no Christian unanimity or at least an absolute Christian majority on Aoun’s side that would allow a weighty bloc, like the Future bloc, to announce the adoption of Aoun’s candidacy.
Speaker Nabih Berri, who is allied with Aoun’s key ally, Hezbollah, does not appear yet to be convinced of supporting Aoun’s option if it is not coupled with a full package. An agreement on Berri’s proposed package is not at hand now.
It is rumored in political circles that Hariri’s supporters need a sufficient convincing dose to accept Aoun’s choice for president. This needs some time to make it possible.
“Assuming that the elements of an inter-Lebanese solution have been tackled, it remains to be seen if these elements will conform with external factors that influence the presidential election,” a source said.
The sources highlighted the importance of the time factor as sources close to the Free Patriotic Movement stress that the ongoing flurry of political activity should lead to an agreement on the election of Aoun as president within an acceptable period of time in order to curb the momentum of the FPM’s ongoing preparations for street protests on Oct. 13.
In the absence of positive signals on the election of Aoun as president, the FPM cannot suspend or postpone the planned street protests, the FPM sources said.
Given the party’s threatened protests, the parliamentary sources said they reached a conviction that a further delay in the presidential election is no longer possible.
“We are faced with only two choices: Either persuading Gen. Aoun to withdraw in favor of another candidate, with Aoun having a key role in choosing this candidate – and this is difficult if not impossible – or quickly agreeing with Aoun on acceptable conditions by everyone to elect him as a president to avert the possibility of Lebanon plunging into the game of street protests which would serve no one because Lebanon has begun to lose its political, constitutional and socioeconomic immunity,” another source said.
