Nasrallah Reiterates Commitment to Aoun's Nomination, Says 'Open to Discussing Premiership'
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Narallah reiterated Saturday that his party is still committed to the presidential nomination of Free Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel Aoun while stressing that Speaker Nabih Berri is Hizbullah's only candidate for the parliament speaker post.
“We have been committed to General Aoun's presidential nomination since the period that preceded the July war, and should an agreement be reached over the president, we are open to discussing the premiership,” said Nasrallah in a televised speech marking 10 years since the end of the 2006 war with Israel.
“It is clear that everyone has entered a waiting phase although the issues are still in the hands of the Lebanese, and everyone agrees that the solution begins by the election of a president,” Hizbullah's chief said.
Referring to recent remarks by ex-PM Fouad Saniora, the head of al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc, Nasrallah added: “Someone committed a mistake in the past few days before apologizing, but it wasn't a mistake, and we declare from now that our only candidate for the parliament speaker post is Speaker Nabih Berri, regardless of the outcome of the next parliamentary elections.”
As for the situations in Syria, Nasrallah said Hizbullah's “only choice is to stay in the battlefields, in Aleppo and anywhere that our duty requires us to be.”
“I tell all the groups that are still fighting in the region that they have been exploited for five years in order to destroy the axis of resistance and the peoples and hopes of this region so that regimes that are subservient to the U.S. and Israel can be created. If you still believe in anything that has to do with Islam you better stop this fighting, which is in the interest of Israel and the U.S.,” Nasrallah added, addressing jihadist groups such as the Islamic State and the Fateh al-Sham Front.
Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum.
Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah.
The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.
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