Rifi Rejects President Subservient to 'Syrian Regime, Iran'
Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi lashed out Sunday at both Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun and Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh without naming them, stressing that the March 14 camp must not accept the election of a president who would be “subservient to the Syrian regime and Iran.”
“We want a president who would not sell his history and the martyrs' dignity for the sake of his lust for power, a president who has not repeatedly insulted the martyrs in their graves,” said Rifi in a speech commemorating slain Internal Security Forces intelligence officer Major Wissam Eid and his companion Osama Merheb.
Eid, a top communications analyst with the ISF Intelligence Branch, was assassinated in a January 25, 2008 car bombing outside Beirut.
“We want a president whose presidential post would not be a prize for his selfish and destructive history,” added Rifi, who is an al-Mustaqbal movement official who is influential in Tripoli and the North.
“We are in desperate need for a president who would bow to the martyrs, a president who has never bragged that he is the brother of a tyrant, a president who would not subject Lebanon to the repercussions of his relation with tyrants,” Rifi said, in an apparent reference to Franjieh.
He stressed that Lebanon needs a president who would not “bargain over his country's security, a president who would be able to confront the terrorism of those who sent Michel Samaha and his killer bombs.”
Former minister Samaha was released on bail earlier this month under a controversial Military Court ruling that has sent shockwaves across the country. He had been arrested in 2012 and charged with attempting to carry out "terrorist acts" over allegations that he and Syrian security services chief Ali Mamluk transported explosives and planned attacks and assassinations of political and religious figures in Lebanon.
“We reject a president who would be subservient to the Syrian regime and Iran, regardless of his identity. We do not find a difference in the regard between (both candidates), because the policies of both of them contradict with the national principles of our March 14 forces,” Rifi added.
Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 when the term of Michel Suleiman ended without the election of successor.
Al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri launched late in 2015 a proposal to nominate Franjieh as president.
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, Hariri's ally in the March 14 camp, was a presidential candidate at the time and some observers have said that the LF leader has recently nominated Aoun for the presidency as a “reaction” to Hariri's proposal.
Geagea's endorsement of Aoun's bid was declared in a landmark ceremony in Maarab on Monday.
Y.R.
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