BEIRUT: Lebanon’s major Christian political parties participated Wednesday in a rare legislative session – the first to be convened in almost a year – in a bid to ease tensions with Speaker Nabih Berri over the presidential elections.
Berri announced Tuesday that the Amal Movement’s parliamentary bloc will participate in the upcoming presidential electoral session but will not vote in favor of FPM founder MP Michel Aoun.
Berri had tied the election of a president to a comprehensive political deal that includes an agreement over a new parliamentary electoral system, the makeup of the upcoming Cabinet and the distribution of ministerial portfolios. Berri’s ‘package deal’ was opposed by the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the Lebanese Forces (LF) and the Maronite patriarch, who argued that it was in violation of the constitution and puts constraints on the president.
Aoun’s powerful Shiite ally, Hezbollah, had encouraged the former general to seek an agreement with. But tensions erupted when words surfaced that former Prime Minister Saad Hariri will soon announce his support for Aoun’s presidential bid.
“We will not [accept to] be informed of the outcome of the agreement but should be part of it,” Khalil said Tuesday in reference to the agreement that is expected to see Hariri endorse Aoun’s candidacy.
Khalil compared the deal between Aoun and Hariri to the National Pact of 1943 that came to symbolize Lebanon’s post-independence confessional politics prior to the Taif Accord.
The national pact is a verbal understanding that was reached between Maronite President Bishara Al Khoury and Sunni Prime Minister Riad al-Sulh.
The power-sharing agreement that laid the foundations of Lebanon as a multi-confessional state reserves the presidency post to a Christian Maronite, the premiership to a Sunni Muslim while the speaker must be a Shiite.
“We are witnessing a Christian-Sunni bilateral agreement similar to the pact of 1943 and we will confront it,” the National News Agency quoted Khalil as saying.
Later in the day, however, Khalil denied making such a statement. Khalil’s remarks drew criticism from LF MP George Adwan who said at the opening of the legislative session that he long considered Berri as “a man of moderation and dialogue.”
Adwan’s statement prompted Berri to reply. “I said yesterday that I will not vote in favor of Aoun and I will be in the opposition. Does this statement have anything to do with sectarianism?” Berri asked.
The LF and FPM had previously tied their participation in a legislative session to the ratification of a new parliamentary electoral law but eventually agreed to attend Wednesday’s session in an apparent attempt to bridge the gap with Berri.
The agenda of Wednesday’s legislative session included a number of important financial draft laws that could land Lebanese on financial blacklists if not approved immediately. Parliament passed five of those draft laws in the early hours of the meeting.
