March 14 Holds onto Geagea but Says Ready to Negotiate on Compromise Candidate
The March 14 alliance on Tuesday kept its support for Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea but said it was ready to agree on another consensual candidate for the presidential elections.
Al-Mustaqbal bloc leader Fouad Saniora announced the initiative along with LF lawmaker George Adwan during a press conference they held at the parliament.
“Out of its keenness to hold the elections, the March 14 alliance calls for the respect of constitutional deadlines and the rotation of power,” Saniora told reporters minutes after Speaker Nabih Berri adjourned a parliamentary session aimed at electing a president.
The March 14 alliance holds onto the candidacy of Geagea, the lawmaker said but expressed the camp's “full readiness to discuss with the rest of the factions the name of a person who receives the backing of all the Lebanese and who is committed to the country's principles.”
“Contacts aimed at reaching a settlement based on the Taef accord start with the immediate election of a president,” Saniora added.
Adwan said after Saniora: “It was compelling for us to open the door for a compromise president to salvage Lebanon.”
The LF MP stressed that the rival parties “are capable of putting their differences aside to open the door of settlement.”
After the announcement of the March 14's initiative, Geagea stressed that he had repeatedly said he wasn't the sole candidate.
“I have never said either me or no one else,” Geagea told reporters at his residence in Maarab.
The majority of the March 8 alliance's MPs, including Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Aoun's Change and Reform bloc, have been boycotting the parliamentary sessions aimed at electing a president, causing a lack of quorum.
Tuesday's session had a similar fate. But Berri set September 23 as a new date for the election of a head of state.
The majority of the March 8 camp's officials have claimed that there should be an agreement on a compromise candidate before heading to the polls. But their boycott is a clear message of rejection to Geagea's candidacy.
Aoun has not officially announced that he was running for the polls, claiming there should be a compromise on him first.
The disagreements among the rival parties and the parliamentary blocs have left the country's top Christian post vacant.
President Michel Suleiman's six-year tenure ended in May.
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