FPM firm message: Elect Aoun president or escalation
Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star/ October 17/16
BEIRUT: Thousands of Free Patriotic Movement supporters turned out Sunday near the presidential palace in the Beirut suburb of Baabda in a show of force apparently intended to step up pressure on former Prime Minister Saad Hariri to endorse MP Michel Aoun’s candidacy for the presidency.
Held under the slogan: “Either there is the National Charter, or there is no Lebanon,” the FPM rally was primarily aimed at sending a clear but firm message that the party will accept nothing short of electing Aoun as president if its threatened street protests over the alleged marginalization of Christians in state posts are to be averted.Aoun, the FPM founder, addressed the rally via video link but did not attend in person.
The rally was also addressed by party leader and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, and attended by Education Minister Elias Bou Saab, FPM lawmakers, and thousands of supporters waving the party’s orange flags and Aoun’s portraits. But the crowd, estimated at only a few thousand, fell short of the FPM’s expectations of a massive turnout in light of the party’s preparations and the mobilization of its loyalists over the past two weeks. Addressing the rally from his residence in Rabieh, north of Beirut, via huge screens erected along the road to the Baabda Palace via a video link, Aoun adopted a conciliatory tone, avoiding his usual tough rhetoric against his political opponents, namely the Future Movement and its March 14 allies.
The rally comes as Hariri is coming under pressure at home to take a final stance on Aoun’s presidential bid. Hariri’s round of intensive consultations with top Lebanese leaders and senior Saudi and French officials in the past two weeks have signaled that he might shift his support from Marada Movement leader MP Sleiman Frangieh to Aoun as a means of ending the presidential vacuum, now in its third year. The rally staged along the road leading to the Baabda Palace – often referred to as the “House of the People” by FPM officials – symbolizes the party’s determination to have Aoun elected as president.
In his speech, Aoun underlined that respecting the Constitution and the country’s equal power-sharing formula between Christians and Muslims was the key to building a proper state. Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law, also stressed that Lebanon would not exist without the National Charter, which enshrines equality between Muslims and Christians. “The first step toward building the nation is respecting the Constitution, the National Charter, laws and guaranteed and balanced partnership to all sects without spitefulness, isolation or suppression,” Aoun told the rally to commemorate his ouster from the palace on Oct. 13, 1990.
“The building of the nation is by putting an end to favoritism and nepotism, respecting qualifications in selection, renewing loyalty to the state and … renewing the political elite through a fair electoral law that ensures true representation to all the nation’s components,” he said.
Future Movement MP Mohammad Qabbani said Aoun’s conciliatory speech was motivated by his presidential aspirations. “Aoun delivered a conciliatory speech because he wants to be elected as president. The speech came after 15 years of provocation against the Future Movement and the Sunni community,” Qabbani told The Daily Star. Aoun said building the nation required creating an appropriate economic and administrative environment to bring back thousands of Lebanese youths working abroad, holding the highest positions in several fields. Aoun, who is standing against Frangieh in the presidential race, did not touch in his speech on any political issue or Hariri’s current efforts to end the deadlock.
Future Movement sources scoffed at the FPM officials’ optimism that Hariri is expected to declare this week his support for Aoun’s candidacy for the presidency. “The majority of the Future bloc [31 MPs] opposes Aoun’s election as president,” a Future source told The Daily Star, adding that Hariri was still pondering all options regarding the presidential election.But Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan said in a statement he expected Hariri to announce his support for Aoun’s candidacy in the next two days, which would set the stage for the election of the FPM founder at the Parliament session on Oct. 31. “The Future bloc is united over Aoun’s option, [Hezbollah leader] Sayyed Hasan [Nasrallah] is honest in backing [Aoun’s] candidacy, and the Lebanese Forces are committed [to supporting Aoun]. Therefore, the FPM’s [lawmakers] must decide and go to the [Parliament] electoral session.”The FPM rally commemorated fateful events on Oct. 13, 1990, when the Syrian army bombarded the Baabda Presidential Palace, forcing Aoun, who was army commander at the time, to take refuge at the French Embassy before he went into self-exile to France in 1991.
Aoun, who at the time headed an interim military government after Parliament failed to elect a successor to the then-President Amine Gemayel, was engaged in battle with the Syrian military over his strong opposition to the 1989 Taif Accord which ended the 1975-90 Civil War. Aoun returned to Lebanon in May 2005, a few weeks after Syria withdrew its army from Lebanon under local and international pressure, ending nearly three decades of its domination of the country. Aoun and other FPM officials have demanded strict adherence to the National Charter’s power-sharing formula. Addressing the rally, Bassil said that the FPM’s dream was to see Aoun become president. “We dream of genuine national unity and coexistence. Yes, our dream is for Michel Aoun to stand on the balcony of the Baabda Palace and call out ‘Oh great people of Lebanon,’” he said, in reference to a quote used by Aoun when addressing his supporters from the palace in 1990. “We entered Parliament, the government, the [state] administration, development, and now there is still the presidency,” he added.
Bassil stressed that without the National Charter, Lebanon would not exist as a nation. “Without its charter, Lebanon is not a nation. It is the charter of equal coexistence between Muslims and Christians,” he said. “Our dream today is the nation and to clean it, not only from garbage, but also from corruption.”
Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai reiterated his rejection of a package deal proposal or understandings to end the presidential stalemate. He also criticized lawmakers for failing to carry out their duty for more than two years to elect a president as stipulated by the Constitution. “We must return to the [National] Charter and the Constitution both in letter and spirit to carry out the great national duty which is the election of a president,” Rai said in Sunday’s sermon at his seat in Bkirki, north of Beirut. “The Lebanese people are fed up with a political practice for two years and six months during which [politicians] discussed a package deal at one time, and understandings at another, most of which, it seems, serve one thing: Sharing of spoils at the expense of Lebanon and its people,” Rai added.
Berri refuses to back Aoun for president despite mounting pressure
Joseph A. Kechichian/Gulf News/October 17/16 |
Future Movement leader Sa’ad Hariri calls for a ‘unified stance’ from March 8 politicians over presidency
Beirut: Anti-Syrian Future Movement leader Sa’ad Hariri will not declare his support for Free Patriotic Movement founder Michel Aoun for president unless the pro-Syrian March 8 alliance, particularly parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, agrees and takes a unified stance in that regard, media reports said on Monday. “I will not nominate Aoun, don’t you try with me,” Berri said on Sunday, despite the fact that Aoun is the official candidate of Hezbollah. “Saudi Arabia will never accept Aoun as a president, and will prevent his arrival at the Baabda Palace even though he garners the support of Hariri,” he said. Hariri’s statement has put the onus on pro-Syrian March 8 politicians, testing their commitment to electing a president in the country. March 8 politicians have been widely quoted in the media saying that Hariri has endorsed Aoun and will make the announcement “soon”. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Sulaiman ended in May 2014 and Hezbollah and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament’s electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum.
Observers point to Hezbollah’s boycott as confirmation that Damascus is not interested in electing Aoun as president and prefers a weak state with no president at all. Hariri’s official candidate for the post is Marada Movement leader Sulaiman Franjieh, but recent reports say he has been mulling to switch his support to Aoun. On Monday, Mohammad Mashnouq, the minister of environment and a close confidant of Prime Minister Tammam Salam added credibility to the circulating rumours. “There is a retreat in [verbal] escalations, and instead the adoption of a comprehensive sectarian coalition to build an understanding, and the absence of differences in anticipation for what will be announced in the coming days,” he tweeted. Under the alleged agreement, Hariri would become prime minister and Aoun, president, a position he has long coveted. But backing Aoun would put Hariri in direct conflict with most of the 35 Future Movement parliamentarians, creating internal rifts within the party, not to mention with Saudi Arabia. On Monday, Druze leader Walid Junblatt said that Lebanon has probably received a signal from abroad, as he voiced fears of the future consequences. “It seems that the signal has been received, God save us,” said Junblatt in a tweet on Monday.
His comments came in parallel with a telephone conversation that Hariri was received on Sunday from Saudi Arabia while in Paris, media reports said. Following the telephone call, Hariri travelled to Saudi Arabia on board his private airplane, added the reports. Al Nahar daily quoted well-informed sources who explained Junblatt’s comments, they said: “Junblatt was informed that the signal includes a rejection of Hariri’s presidential path [as for nominating MP Michel Aoun] by officials in Riyadh as well as a rejection of Hariri’s premiership from the March 8 alliance prompting fears of possible repercussions which made him say ‘God save us’.” Lebanon’s presidential deadlock has been linked to regional issues mainly the war in Syria and the Saudi-Iranian ties.