Hezbollah Attacks Opponents over Presidential Candidacy: Latest Updates

In Asharq Al-Awsat it was stated:

“Hezbollah” attacked the intersection of its opponents over supporting the candidacy of former minister Jihad Azour for the presidency, saying, in the words of a member of its Central Council, Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, that “the new alignments in the presidential file confirmed our national concerns and exposed the hidden intentions.” This was days before a presidential election session to be held. Parliament next Wednesday.

Most members of Parliament are divided between two options; One of them supports Azour, who are the “Lebanese Forces”, the “Free Patriotic Movement”, the “Lebanese Kataeb”, the “Progressive Socialist Party” and independent personalities, in exchange for the support of “Hezbollah” and the “Amal Movement” and their allies for the nomination of the head of the “Marada Movement” Suleiman Franjieh. , While others, changemakers and independents, have not made up their minds yet.

Hezbollah stipulates the election of a president who will “reassure the resistance,” according to what its officials have repeated, and views the matter as “anxiety to it,” as its opponents say. In the past period, the party made a fan of contacts, and said that the most reassuring person for it is Franjieh.
The Maronite Patriarch Beshara Al-Rai entered the line of contact with “Hezbollah” and the “Amal Movement” in an attempt to overcome the obstacles facing Azour’s candidacy and end the vacancy in the position of the presidency of the republic. Nasrallah, and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

The Lebanese are awaiting the arrival of the French envoy assigned by President Emmanuel Macron, former Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, to Beirut, before Wednesday’s session, to meet with political forces, and to prepare a report on developments and positions related to the presidential crisis, as part of his tasks assigned to him by Macron as his special representative, in order to “Dialogue with everyone who can contribute to resolving the crisis, whether inside or outside Lebanon.”

Hezbollah anticipated the date of the session, in which Azour is expected to win more votes than Franjieh’s, by attacking the candidate of his opponents. Kaouk said that Lebanon “needs national intersections that will save it from collapse and protect it from sedition, and intersections that are in the national interest, not in the interest of people.”
He said, “The new alignments in the presidential file confirmed our national concerns and exposed the hidden intentions,” adding that “our national responsibility obliges us to fortify the arena and block the path to sedition,” reiterating Hezbollah’s call for unconditional dialogue “whether at the level of participants or candidates,” stressing It is a “serious position and not a political or media maneuver.”

Hezbollah announced that it and its allies would vote for Franjieh in Wednesday’s session. The head of the “Baalbek-Hermel bloc,” Representative Hussein Hajj Hassan, said that this vote will be “in exchange for a candidate who was opposed to him a few days ago by parties, some of which had placed a (veto) on his candidacy, and some of them wrote in it what could not allow them to adopt his candidacy, and some He clearly says that they only agreed on it, and they differ on everything in the political programmes.”

Hezbollah describes Azour as a challenging candidate, which the party’s opponents deny. A member of the “Kataeb” bloc, MP Salim al-Sayegh, addressed “everyone”, advising them to “respond to the movement of the Maronite patriarch, which comes to reassure everyone, because no one wants to go towards the language of challenge,” adding that “what is required of Jihad Azour is to move towards all the Lebanese parties.” Following the movement of the patriarch and conducting a number of meetings.
And Al-Sayegh continued: “We are concerned, if Azour reaches the presidency, and for his reign to succeed, that he give (Hezbollah) assurances that there is no targeting of him or the resistance, and the French move to change the team that deals with the Lebanese file falls in the category of bringing France closer to the American approach of the presidential election,” adding that “the intersection over Azour is acceptable to the international quintet for the sake of Lebanon.”

However, assurances that Azour is not a challenging candidate are not sufficient to guarantee his election, or at least to secure a quorum for his election. The opposition fears that the session will lose its legal quorum if the deputies supporting Franjieh withdraw. The constitution requires that the president be elected by a two-thirds majority (86 deputies) in the first session, and the presence of a two-thirds majority and voting by half plus one in the second session. Franjieh’s supporters put the hypothesis of withdrawing from the session among the options to prevent the election of Azour by a majority of 65 deputies, in the event that this number is secured for his election.

A member of the “Democratic Gathering” bloc, MP Marwan Hamadeh, said: “We did not take Azour as a challenger candidate, and we do not consider ourselves facing anyone. But the others are the ones who confront and reap the choices. He added, “We have experienced a lot in public and private, and we are not afraid. Rather, we will work according to our convictions, and if Franjieh succeeds with a clear majority, then you are welcome. In the end, we cannot say: No, to the democratic game, but if the quorum game takes place and its volatility, then this is what we do not accept.

Although the opposition says that Azour’s numbers are close to 65 votes, it remains to rely on persuading the undecided to vote for him, to ensure securing a majority of half plus one for him, at a time when some of the representatives of the “Change” bloc are heading to vote with a white paper, because they reject the recent political alignments, and vote for one. The two candidates supported by traditional political forces. This reality is expressed by Representative Yassin Yassin, who asserted that there are “two options, neither of which will reach the presidency.” He said, “When we grasped the situation and visited them in September, they did not seize our initiative. Rather, they continued to either disrupt the quorum or vote for one person.”
He added in a statement: “We want a president who speaks clearly to the people and rules. There is no clarity in the files of the former minister, Jihad Azour, and he cannot form the government in light of this division. We want a president who is outside the alignments and brings together the Lebanese, and we have the right not to take a decision because we are facing a candidate for opposition and a clone of the previous era and a candidate for an intersection agreement that could be a clone of the agreement of the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces in 2016, which brought former President Michel Aoun to the presidency, »adding: « This is very suspicious and there is no trust in the two.”