Hasan Lakkis| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s rival leaders will sit for a third round of dialogue Tuesday, with Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun likely to boycott the all-embracing talks for a second time. Unlike the previous two sessions, Tuesday’s meeting will be held in Parliament with the absence of anti- government protests nearby.
The “You Stink” campaign has not called for a demonstration in parallel to the meeting.
Rival leaders failed in the previous two meetings to achieve consensus over the presidential deadlock, now in its 16th month.
FPM parliamentary sources said that Aoun would likely boycott Tuesday’s session, noting that Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil would represent the group in the talks.
Aoun will only attend when he senses that dialogue participants are serious about resolving thorny issues, the sources said. They added that officials taking part in the talks should not say it is impossible to elect a president by popular vote, a demand of the FPM leader.
The sources said that Aoun had been clear in a speech he made in Jounieh Sunday, when he said that the solution to the presidential deadlock required holding parliamentary elections first rather than electing a president, the order most dialogue participants prefer.
The sources said that neither Parliament nor Cabinet would resume their work if no agreement was reached on the complicated issues related to the government’s decision-making system and security appointments. The sources voiced fears that promises to resolve these two issues were mere talk.
However, parliamentary sources from the Kataeb Party said they believed failure to reach an agreement to end the presidential deadlock, the first item on the dialogue agenda, would prevent the talks from having the desirable outcome.
The sources said that a negative outcome was likely after remarks made Sunday by MP Mohammad Raad, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc.
Raad said that his party was ready to wait for a thousand years to elect a strong Christian president, in reference to Aoun, the group’s candidate.
The sources said that the main reason the Kataeb Party had joined the dialogue was because the presidential crisis figures so prominently on the the agenda.
Moving on to another item without addressing the crisis might prompt the Kataeb to also boycott the talks, the sources said.Berri, who launched the dialogue earlier this month, said that he would be forced to suspend the meetings if any political party besides the Lebanese Forces decided to boycott the meetings. Ministerial sources participating in the talks did not rule out such a scenario.
Kataeb Party leader Sami Gemayel said that Tuesday’s session would be decisive. “I predict that tomorrow’s session will be decisive and stances will become clear. It will become obvious whether there is an intention to allow us to achieve progress or remain where we are,” Gemayel said after visiting Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian at Dar al-Fatwa.
“Honestly, I don’t have hopes regarding national dialogue, particularly after I heard the speeches over the past three days that indicate each party is sticking to its own stance, unfortunately, at the expense of Lebanon and the Lebanese.”
Future Bloc MP Ammar Houri said that Aoun’s Sunday speech brought nothing new, particularly regarding the presidential crisis.
“Aoun is still saying: me or nobody,” Houri told a local radio station, adding that a consensus president would be elected at the end.