Aoun to Send an Envoy for Talks with Hariri over Presidential Impasse within Weeks
The Free Patriotic Movement chief, Michel Aoun, will send an aide to hold a meeting with head of al-Mustaqbal movement Saad Hariri to know his final answer regarding his run for the presidency.
Sources close to Aoun said in comments published in An Nahar newspaper on Wednesday that Aoun will task his aide to hold talks with Hariri within a period of three weeks maximum.
The sources stressed that the FPM chief is holding onto his decision not to run for the presidential post unless he was a consensual candidate and if he guaranteed to garner most of the parliamentary votes.
“If Hariri decided not to support Aoun's nomination, then the Christian chief and his allies have the priority in naming the presidential candidate and suggest the name to the March 14 alliance as the Change and Reform bloc has the parliamentary majority,” sources pointed out.
Several meetings were held recently between Hariri and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, who is loyal to Aoun, to discuss the presidential deadlock.
The alleged rapprochement between al-Mustaqbal and the FPM, however, has failed to end the differences over the presidential race.
Lebanon has been plunged into a leadership vacuum after Michel Suleiman's presidential term ended on May 25 with rival political blocs still divided over a new leader.
Over the past two months the parliament convened five times to try to elect a successor to Suleiman but failed during the last four sessions due to a lack of quorum.
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