The head of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil, attacked the presidential candidate, and the head of the “Marada” movement, Suleiman Franjieh, underestimating his political weight and his weight on the level of Lebanon.
Bassil said in a leaked recording, during his conversation with supporters of the movement in France, that the easiest decision for the Free Patriotic Movement, to end the stage of the presidential vacuum after the end of Michel Aoun’s term, is to support any candidate for victory.
He made it clear that he had personally obtained guarantees that if Franjieh was supported to win, the movement would get any matter it wanted, including ministerial portfolios, protections, and shares of oil, wealth, and others.
He added, however, that he opposes Franjieh’s support for his thinking in the “interest of the country,” continuing: “We want to agree on a president who has value and value, and we avoid a presidential vacuum, but what is happening now is that we did not avoid the vacuum, and we did not get a candidate who has value and value.”
And he added: “We are not walking with Suleiman Franjieh. Now it is not appropriate to talk, but it is not a personal issue. Perhaps we, frankly, the movement did not lose Suleiman Franjieh, the presidency of the republic. What does Franjieh take from us? Franjieh has become in Zgharta and is getting smaller. Before, I mean, there is no danger to us.”
He continued, “What do I want to promise you about? He fights corruption? He builds a state? Does he mean the human model at the head of the state? What are we talking about prestige, about balance, and about location? What do I want to tell you? When he thinks of this level, I want to be ashamed of my situation.”
Bassil sent a message to all opponents in Lebanon, saying that the Free Patriotic Movement is the only one that can tip the balance of a presidential candidate at the expense of the other.
After the leak was circulated, Basil tweeted on his Twitter account, confirming his position on Franjieh, but without a personal attack on him, saying: “I do not support Franjieh’s candidacy, in short, because we do not agree with him on the reform political program to build the state.”
While the representative of the “Marada” movement, Tony Franjieh, responded to Basil, saying: “Suleiman Franjieh will remain a national, unifying figure that will overcome attempts to hide behind the different sects and concepts of isolation, which exhausted the country and the people.”
He added, “We, too, do not agree with you on the political and reform program to build a state,” continuing, “We tried and found out… it led us to hell.”
On Thursday, the Lebanese parliament failed, for the sixth time in a row, to elect a president to succeed Michel Aoun, whose term ended on October 31.
The official “National Media Agency” in Lebanon said that Michel Moawad got 43 votes, Issam Khalifa got 7 votes, Suleiman Franjieh got one vote, and three for Ziad Baroud, while 46 deputies voted for a white paper, and 10 papers were canceled and two were written in each. phrase.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri set November 24 as a new date for the election of the President of the Republic, immediately after the session ended and the second session did not reach a quorum.
Article 49 of the Lebanese constitution stipulates that the president of the country must be elected in the first voting round by a two-thirds majority, i.e. 86 deputies, and the absolute majority (half + 1) is sufficient in the following sessions, provided that the quorum for attending these sessions, whether the first or the second, is 86 deputies.
In short, I do not support Franjieh’s candidacy because we do not agree with him on the reformist political program to build the state
— Gebran Bassil (@Gebran_Bassil) November 17, 2022
will stay #SuleimanFranjieh An inclusive national figure who transcends attempts to hide behind sects and the various concepts of isolation that exhausted the country and its people.
We also do not agree with you on the political and reform program to build a state.
“Try us and see”… It brought us to “Hell”. https://t.co/z8SsvQYups— Tony Frangieh (@TonyFrangieh) November 17, 2022