Reports: Bassil seeking to create 'third electoral force'

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil is seeking to create a so-called “third parliamentary force” that would elect a new president, media reports said.

“Bassil wants this parliamentary force to turn into a kingmaker in the negative parliamentary equation, after he paved the way for it by holding both the Lebanese Forces and Hezbollah responsible for the delay in launching dialogue and electing a new president,” ad-Diyar newspaper reported on Monday.

“Bassil is seeking to publicly promote a third candidate and it is not unlikely that he might delve into names and propose two or three candidates to the political forces,” the daily quoted highly-informed sources as saying.

“The exit that Bassil is proposing for the pre-elections consultations obstacle is that the Lebanese Forces’ participation in them is not necessary, seeing as the FPM will be the representative of Christian forces in the consultations session,” ad-Diyar said.

The FPM would “agree on one or two candidates with the forces that are rejecting consultations before bringing the names to the table,” the newspaper added.

Al-Jadeed television meanwhile quoted sources as saying that Bassil is “seeking to sway a number of blocs, topped by the Democratic Gathering, the National Moderation bloc and independents, in an attempt to bring the number to 65 MPs with the aim of bypassing the (currently) proposed names, topped by (Marada Movement chief Suleiman) Franjieh.”