Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Sharp differences emerged Friday during a meeting between a Hezbollah delegation and Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai after the party said it was adamant on backing MP Michel Aoun for the presidency, rejecting any alternative candidate, according to Bkirki sources.
The Hezbollah delegation, led by the party’s Political Council chief Sayyed Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed, visited Bkirki, the Maronite patriarch’s seat, north of Beirut, to congratulate Rai on Christmas.
Sources in Bkirki described the meeting, which lasted one and a half hours, as “very important,” saying the talks were dominated by how to resolve the crisis that has left Lebanon without a president for more than seven months.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Sayyed said Aoun, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, remained Hezbollah’s sole candidate for president.
“On the presidential election issue, we have announced that we back Gen. Michel Aoun’s candidacy for president,” Sayyed said. “We are convinced of Gen. Aoun’s personality, which is competent and capable of assuming such a responsibility at this time in particular when the Lebanese are facing big challenges and dangers.”
Asked if Hezbollah was ready to accept a compromise candidate to break the deadlock – with the party and its March 8 allies supporting Aoun and the March 14 coalition backing Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea for the presidency – Sayyed said: “Until now, our candidate for the presidency is Gen. Michel Aoun.”
In response to Hezbollah’s unyielding support for Aoun, Rai cited during the meeting three priorities which he said could help break the presidential deadlock: Either all candidates, including Aoun and Geagea, go down to Parliament to seek lawmakers’ support, or let Aoun and Geagea withdraw from the presidency race, or let the FPM and LF leaders agree on a consensus candidate, a source who participated in the Bkirki meeting told The Daily Star.
When Rai asked the Hezbollah delegation to try to convince Aoun to go down to Parliament for the election session, the delegation dithered, saying: “It is not ready to make any endeavor with Aoun unless he himself wanted to do it,” the source said.
Hezbollah’s response to Rai, according to the source, was: “As long as Gen. Aoun is a candidate for the presidency, we support him and we are not looking for another candidate.”
The boycott by Aoun’s bloc and Hezbollah and most its March 8 allies has been blamed for thwarting a quorum of 17 Parliament sessions to elect a president.
Aoun has offered recently to go to Parliament to face off against Geagea if the contest was confined to them only.
Rai recalled that he had met separately in the past few weeks with the four top Maronite leaders – Aoun, Geagea, Kataeb Party leader Amine Gemayel and Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Frangieh – in an attempt to reach an agreement to end the presidential stalemate.
“The patriarch called on Aoun to attend the voting session in Parliament because through voting only we can see the support he enjoys,” the source said.
Rai told the Hezbollah delegation that if Aoun won the votes of 57 to 60 lawmakers during the election session, he pledged to seek to obtain the votes of additional lawmakers in order to secure a majority for the FPM leader, the source added.
The meeting was also attended by Maronite Bishop Samir Mazloum and Hares Chehab, two members of a joint dialogue committee between Hezbollah and Bkirki.
Speaking to reporters, Sayyed also denied there was a break in Hezbollah’s ties with the Maronite Church following Rai’s controversial trip to the Holy Land in Jerusalem earlier this year.
“The relationship between us is bigger than to be cut. It is our responsibility to discuss and consult with each other even if we differed on a specific issue. God willing, we will not reach a boycott or a break in ties,” Sayyed said.
He added that he briefed Rai on the dialogue which kicked off this week between Hezbollah and the Future Movement in a bid to defuse sectarian tensions in the country fueled by the war in Syria.
Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said the time has come for the March 8 and March 14 parties to drop their presidential candidates in favor of a consensus candidate.
Machnouk, a leading figure in the Future Movement, said the dialogue with Hezbollah would not touch on divisive issues such as the party’s military intervention in Syria and the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which is investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
“The dialogue will not be over the name of the president or the president’s political tendency. Rather, it will discuss the possibility of an agreement on a president who has a consensual character,” he said in an interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite channel.
Machnouk along with Nader Hariri, chief of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s staff, and MP Samir Jisr represented the Future Movement during the first session of dialogue held at Speaker Nabih Berri’s residence in Ain al-Tineh Tuesday.
