Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri called for a meeting of the Parliament Bureau on Monday to set the agenda for a plenary session he had promised to organize in the first half of December.
Above all, his move means that Parliament is ready to act to avoid a vacancy at the head of the army by extending the term of office of its Commander-in-Chief General Joseph Aoun. Najib Mikati’s government seems unable to settle this issue due to the opposition of Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) ministers to keeping General Aoun in his post.
Among the legislative texts on the agenda of this meeting are four bills, all of which aim to keep General Joseph Aoun in his post until a new president is elected.
These two issues, the risk of a vacancy at the head of the army and the presidential election, were discussed, among others, during Berri’s meeting in Ain el-Tineh on Thursday. Present at the meeting was a delegation from the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) parliamentary bloc led by party leader Taymour Joumblatt, and MPs Fady Alameh and Achraf Beydoun from the Berri bloc. The PSP delegation included MPs Marwan Hamade, Akram Chehayeb, Hadi Aboul-Hosn, Wael Abou Faour and Faysal Sayegh.
At the end of the meeting, Chehayeb stressed the need to preserve the country’s only remaining functioning institution, the army, praising “the wisdom of the Parliament Speaker, who has always known how to chair parliamentary sessions successfully.”
In response to a question about which bill would be adopted to extend the term of office of the army’s commander-in-chief, Chehayeb said he wanted to wait and see which bills the Bureau would select. He insisted on the urgent nature of the army command issue and pointed out the existence of two bills of double urgency relating to it.
Four bills have been submitted to Parliament to avoid a vacancy in the army command, with the retirement of General Aoun set for January 10, 2024. These bills were submitted by the Lebanese Forces (LF), PSP and National Moderation blocs, and by MP Adib Abdel Massih.
Regarding the presidential election, Chehayeb said that “dialogue is the shortest and most effective way to elect a president, reactivate the functioning of institutions and preserve the country’s security.”
As a reminder, in early November, the LF submitted a double emergency bill to raise the retirement age of the army commander from 60 to 61.
The PSP’s proposal and Abdel Massih’s would defer retirement by three years for all army and Internal Security Forces (ISF) officers, regardless of rank.
The National Moderation parliamentary bloc proposes postponing by one year the retirement of army and ISF heads.
