The leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) Gebran Bassil has openly proposed a deal to the Amal-Hezbollah tandem for their candidate’s accession to the presidency.
“The price of their presidential candidate will be nothing less than expanded decentralization, a trust fund, and a state-building program,” Bassil said during the FPM Metn department dinner on Thursday, specifying that decentralization and the fund “should be guaranteed by laws passed for that purpose.”
“We reject any dialogue aimed at wasting time and effort,” he added, “on the other hand, any serious dialogue that leads to a concrete result is desirable and necessary, provided that a clear program, with a precise deadline and an end goal, is defined.”
Bassil stressed that holding consecutive electoral sessions after the dialogue (as suggested by Jean-Yves Le Drian, the personal representative of French President Emmanuel Macron) means that a president will be elected in September, “either by consensus – which we prefer – or by democratic means, which remains preferable to a vacancy.”
During the last election session, the FPM parliamentarians voted in favor of former minister Jihad Azour, following their “convergence” on his candidacy with the sovereignist opposition MPs. As for the March 8 MPs, they voted for Sleiman Frangieh, the leader of the Marada party.
