Emad Marmel wrote in “The Republic”:
The current year is approaching its unhappy end amidst the exacerbation of gloomy indicators on several levels, while insiders exclude that the beginning of next year will bring qualitative positives that will soon allow the election of the President of the Republic, but this pessimism didn’t stop Walid Jumblatt from carrying “the needle” and trying to dig into the accumulated complexities of “Mountain”.
The political movement of the head of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, finally seemed remarkable, who within a few days met with the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, deputy Gebran Bassil, and the presidential candidate, deputy Michel Moawad, while his delegate Democratic Rally member Representative Wael Abu Faour was traveling between Maarab and Ain al-Tineh, where he met with Prime Minister Nabih Berri MP and Lebanese Forces party chief Samir Geagea.
Jumblatt’s movement has come to fill some of the lost time and presidential vacuum in the two-year period, with his prior knowledge that the paths to Baabda Palace are still closed off by high barriers and that opening them requires political “bulldozers” who are not still in service.
However, Jumblatt suggests that the honor of trying is still better than surrendering after a fait accompli, bearing in mind that the complex crisis seems more complex than any purely local effort, and this has prompted some to rely on the expectation of a “presidential gift”. by the “donor countries” and to stop placing weak hopes on “national industry”, while there are those who insist on the fact that the insider can be a decision-maker in the presidential dossier, and not just a recipient, if its political forces assume their responsibilities.
Until vision cleared, the meeting that brought Jumblatt from Basil to Pierre Daher’s house was the most obvious hallmark in light of the internal blockade and the notorious rivalry between the two sides. law.
The meeting did not please some of the “fans” of the two teams, considering that it went against the tide and denied the mutual “mobilization”, revealed by separate comments on social media.
However, circles of the Progressive Socialist Party point out that Jumblatt has enough audacity to argue with those who disagree with them on the basis of his constants, “and just as before he had the courage to dialogue with “Hezbollah”, which exposed to criticism from opponents of the party, today he has the same courage to sit down with Basil after appreciating the situation, because the current impasse can only be addressed by trying to reach agreements that allow to fill the vacant posts in the Baabda Palace.
And he underlines that “Jumblatt’s movement, including his meeting with Bassil, falls within the context of his constant call for dialogue to seek solutions. Thus, he was in tune with himself and translated his words into action, trying to break the vicious circle in which the country rotates, and to find a positive break somewhere, without denying the difficulty of the task.
The circles ask themselves: what is the value of the invitation to dialogue if it is not liquefied by being open to everyone without exception, starting with the opponents?
And if there were those who inserted the Jumblatt-Bassil session in the context of the former’s attempt to extend the extension to the Army Chief of Staff, Major General PSC Amin al-Aram, then socialist circles deny it completely and confirmed that this matter was not discussed between the two men, explaining that the army leadership honored al-Aram on the occasion of his retirement two days before the meeting, “and therefore it made no sense to raise the issue”.
The circles underline that dialogue has a long way, and its return is neither immediate nor guaranteed, “However, this does not preclude that we, as Lebanese, must fulfill our duty and our role in seeking ways out of the current tunnel, indeed rather than waiting for the outside.