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A meeting between representatives of France, USA, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Qatar is due to be held early this week in Doha to discuss the Lebanese crisis, on the basis of the report of French President Emmanuel Macron’s special envoy for Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian.
Le Drian, who will be present at the meeting, is expected to report back to the representatives of the five countries on the results of the first round of talks he initiated in Lebanon last June. According to local news agency Al-Markaziya, the US Ambassador to Beirut Dorothy Shea will also be in attendance. Le Drian could make another visit to Lebanon for a second round of talks after the end of this meeting.
If the average Lebanese is interested in what this meeting brings about, it is above all in hopes of witnessing institutional revitalization that would put Lebanon on the road to recovery. But for political parties, the stakes are different. They are certainly looking for a way out of the crisis, but only if it meets their expectations.
The sovereignist camp, which is supported by a large part of the population, insists that the end of the presidential vacuum must bring about the liberation of the State from Hezbollah’s destructive grip. Hence its staunch opposition to the candidacy of a figure close to the pro-Iranian axis. The latter, while advocating for dialogue, slyly continues to maintain its conditions: for Hezbollah, the stakes are high. The party’s power is at stake.
The weekend’s political speeches reflected these divergent positions. Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, who held “lengthy” talks in Bkaakafra, North Lebanon, with Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai to discuss the presidential election, insisted that “the only solution is to convene a parliamentary meeting and elect a president.”
“Let them stop waiting for France, or going to Egypt and Qatar,” he stated. Geagea added that “the opposition will not accept shoddy solutions and will not bend, even under the pressure of the crisis. It will not be provoked by those who reject constitutional solutions and care little about the social difficulties of the population.” He continued, “I’m saying this so they know exactly what’s in store. The only possible solution is for us all to go to Parliament and hold successive meetings until a president is elected. Had the Moumanaa camp (pro-Iranian axis) not withdrawn from the June 14 meeting (date of the last parliamentary meeting), we would have had a president today.”
Ghassan Hasbani, a Lebanese Forces MP, bluntly accused House Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, of “turning against the Taif Agreement in his invention of new customs for each constitutional deadline.” He particularly criticized the call for dialogue.
Not only does the opposition’s call to respect the democratic rules of the Constitution continue to go unheard, but the pro-Iranian axis also continues to surprise with its (anti)constitutional “creativity.” The latest is the jurisprudence of Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, a member of Hezbollah’s Central Council, who believes that “the balance of forces within Parliament makes an agreement (around a candidate for head of state) binding.” Needless to say, he did not refer to the Constitution, or to any other text, to explain the basis on which he has asserted that dialogue is binding.
The Jaafari mufti Sheikh Ahmad Kabalan, who has close ties with Hezbollah and has, as usual, made a speech with barely veiled threats, blasting the opposition and the United States and blaming them for the crisis in which the country finds itself. These threats were addressed to his political adversaries and to foreign parties committed to finding a solution for Lebanon. “The solution is and must remain internal. External help to find a way out of the crisis is welcome, but sacrifices cannot be made. Lebanon still has the power to make a sovereign national decision. The Army-people-resistance triptych has given rise to a power of dissuasion, which is also political and which has at the head of its agenda the national duo,” Amal and Hezbollah, he warned in a statement.
A warning obviously accompanied by a call for dialogue. The same call was launched a few days ago by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and relayed again on Sunday by Ulema Ali Fadlallah.
The opposition, however, remains categorically opposed to a dialogue “that will lead nowhere.” This view is shared by the Free Patriotic Movement, whose leader Gebran Bassil said on Sunday that he was in favor of dialogue “if it can lead to a solution, but against any dialogue that will clearly lead to an impasse and that does not have a clear agenda or a set schedule to hold the presidential election, whatever its result.”
