The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai learned that “Hezbollah, which informed the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Gebran Bassil, that it would continue to support the candidacy of the head of the Marada Movement, Suleiman Franjieh, and would provide any they would jeopardize the basis of consensus on his election Unequivocal signals that the party that wants to maintain the political alliance with it will not support his candidacy anyway.
Well-informed circles explained to “Al-Rai” that “Hezbollah is deeply disturbed by Basil’s intention to leak what suggests that they are the contents of the dialogue with the party leadership. He believes that the impulsiveness and the attacks Basil’s indiscriminate are due to his ill-concealed desire to create the conditions for his candidacy for the presidency, with what this presupposes.” Prolonging the vacancy and working to alienate the more fortunate.
He believed Bassil’s attempt to embarrass “Hezbollah” would not work. In his forward escape attempt, he seemed to be risking the “back lines”, and thus his secret meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and his deliberate leaks from Paris led to an understanding between Berri and the party on a decisive “no” to Bassil in his presumptive candidacy for the presidency.
According to reports from Al-Rai, circles close to the presidential electoral dossier have revealed that in the aftermath of the news leaks and Bassil’s statements from the French capital, Franjieh’s supporters have decided to take several steps, the most important of which it was the openness that established the equation of Franjieh as president of the republic and Nawaf Salam, or another figure of the same background, as prime minister in a way that would gain a Lebanese-outside consensus on merit completion.
Furthermore, «the effort, through a role played by Berri, is to explore in depth the position of the Gulf on the presidential elections, which is the position closest to a “declaration of principles”, as if it wanted to lure the Arab capitals, especially those of the Gulf, to engage in the game of internal bargaining and the bazaar of names at the service of this or that candidate.
The newspaper pointed out that Franjieh’s supporters also decided to follow “advice that may have reached Franjieh’s ears by opening channels of communication with the ‘Lebanese Forces’ party to ensure the participation of its parliamentary bloc in any electoral session in which the luck could be written for the leader of the “Marada Movement”, at least by voting with a white paper that drops the pretext of the “Christian boycott” of Franjieh’s electoral round.
These circles told Al-Rai that “Hezbollah, which backs Franjieh’s candidacy behind its back, is open to agreeing to any other name that can enjoy a wide range of domestic, international and Arab support, as it wishes to ensure a environment that allows Gulf involvement in the process of Lebanon’s advance, having achieved the reassurance of its firm influence and the belief that no one protects its weapons except its weapons.
At this moment, the political circles have stopped, “Paris has intensified its leadership contacts with Saudi Arabia following the Lebanese dossier, and in the framework of an attempt to ensure favorable conditions for the completion of the presidential elections so as to guarantee that it constitutes a leap into Lebanon’s reality, accelerating its exit from the financial abyss, and not being an extension of the crisis with roots”. Policy related to the strategic positioning of Beirut and the roles of “Hezbollah” in the region.
