Geagea Urges Election of President in Lebanon, 'Not in Doha or Paris'
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said Thursday that the rival March 8 camp does not want a “real state” in Lebanon, accusing it of “obstructing” parliamentary sessions aimed at electing a new president in order to “maintain the state of chaos” in the country.
“We will not accept the persistence of the artificial, paralyzed and usurped state in Lebanon. We will struggle to restore the real and strong state,” Geagea said at a ceremony titled Day of the Republic that was organized by the LF's Student Department in Maarab.
“Some parties do not want a strong state ... and that's why they have gone mad and that's why they are talking and behaving in this manner,” added Geagea, referring to ballots cast by some MPs during the April 23 electoral session, which carried names of victims of murders Geagea is accused of having orchestrated during the 1975-1990 civil war.
“They are obstructing the sessions and they will keep obstructing them so that we accept the president they want ... They want us to accept a president who would maintain the state of chaos ... and allow them to continue their theft, acts and hegemony,” Geagea said.
Describing the current period as “a historic moment on the path of our Lebanese, democratic project,” the LF leader stated: “I am not the presidential candidate but our project is. Bashir Gemayel, Rene Mouawad and Rafik Hariri are our candidates.”
He said the LF and its allies were doing everything in their capacity in order to reach a “made in Lebanon” president.
“But unfortunately we are pressing forward and they are drawing us backward,” Geagea lamented.
“They are obstructing to take us once again to Doha, Paris or any other capital. But this time, we won't go anywhere,” he stressed, in an apparent reference to the meeting that was held Tuesday between former premier Saad Hariri and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, a Free Patriotic Movement official and son-in-law of MP Michel Aoun.
“We were born here and we were raised here. We want to elect here, we want to live here and we want to die here,” Geagea added.
Hitting out at the March 8 camp, Geagea noted that the rival coalition “has neither announced the name of its candidate nor declared its program.”
“It has not paid a visit to any parliamentary bloc and everything it has done is impeding the electoral sessions. They are roaming the countries of the world in search for support that they do not enjoy inside the country. This is their democracy and this is their Lebanon,” added Geagea.
He said the state the March 14 camp is seeking to build “would not belong to the LF, nor to March 14, but rather to all the Lebanese.”
“We are doing everything needed in order to bring this project to the helm of the country. This juncture is one of the rounds that the March 14 forces are going through in a united manner,” added Geagea.
“The same as March 14 triumphed against tyranny, oppression, injustice and hegemony, it will triumph today against obstruction, intimidation, threats and assassinations,” he stressed.
Geagea and Democratic Gathering bloc MP Henri Helou are so far the only two candidates who have announced official nominations.
On Wednesday, lawmakers once again failed to elect a new president as differences between the March 8 and 14 alliances led to a lack of quorum in the second parliamentary session aimed at choosing a new head of state.
As the March 14 camp held onto its candidate Geagea, the Hizbullah-led March 8 alliance, except for Speaker Nabih Berri's Development and Liberation bloc, boycotted the session over lack of consensus on a certain candidate.
Berri set Wednesday, May 7 for a third round of voting.
Y.R.
Source: Naharnet
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