Nicolas Nassif wrote in Al-Akhbar: After what was said the day after President Nabih Berri’s stances last week that he pushed the presidential elections on a new path, it is assumed accordingly that any next session of the Parliament will not resemble the past eleven, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah confirmed the sandbags in the confrontation with certainty Supporting Franjieh as his final candidate, and at the same time reinforcing the belief that any session called by the Speaker of Parliament to elect the president – if it is to be held and a two-thirds quorum is completed first – means in advance that Franjieh is the candidate of the Shiite duo and his allies against the candidate of the other team, whoever it may be. In the concealed information about the Shiite duo’s management of the battle of his candidate, preparation for it began early, at a slow pace. Its elements are various: periodic meetings away from the media between Berri and Franjieh, in parallel with daily lines of communication between the two and their third, the Zghartawi leader, and with the allies to track local contacts and positions or those launched by influential ambassadors in secret and in public. At the heart of the requirements for the success of this administration is avoiding what Hezbollah experienced between 2014 and 2016 in its haste to announce support for Aoun’s candidacy for the presidency after it was forced upon him under pressure from the Free Patriotic Movement (which Nasrallah revealed yesterday) in the face of Berri’s opposition to his candidacy. At that time, the great catastrophe arose when Aoun was called Hezbollah’s candidate before he joined him – despite that, each for different reasons – in succession, Samir Geagea, then President Saad Hariri, while Berri remained the only opposition to him.
With Berri’s announcement last Thursday of his endorsement of Franjieh, he jumped over the slow stages, not associated with a timetable, in order to become a new fait accompli that may not necessarily foretell the expectation of setting a soon date for the twelfth session to elect the president, in light of new variables for the next stage: 1 – The reaction of the opponents of the duo And Franjieh, because they also moved to a shocking new path in approaching the sessions, by announcing in advance that they would boycott them if they were sure that they would lead to the election of Franjieh. The new weapon for this team is its attempt to seize the third plus one (44 deputies) in the council to disrupt the two-thirds quorum, which is eligible to go to the second round of voting. Thus, this team found in obstruction, which it previously rejected, the best way to prevent the arrival of the opponent candidate, and in turn follows the example of the one originally accused of obstructing the election sessions more than once. The significance of this intersection is that the two conflicting parties do not approach the presidential elections as a constitutional entitlement and a binding and inevitable duty, but rather ways to prevent the arrival of the candidate that each of them rejects.
2 – After Walid Jumblatt adhered throughout the eleven sessions to the support of Representative Michel Moawad, he made a first turn since its suspension when he proposed three names for the presidency, not including the Zgharta deputy, namely Jihad Azour, Salah Hanin, and Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, but it did not receive deaf ears. Then, last Thursday, he made a second turn by standing beside Berri in what he said, without showing interest in the candidate who had persevered until that time, and he is the deputy of Zgharta, suggesting that his choice at the moment of siding is with Berri and not with anyone else. Since the three names were proposed, he implicitly showed a willingness to abandon Moawad, or at best a willingness to go to someone else, in conjunction with his insistence on refusing to elect Franjieh. Jumblatt’s two turns are definitely not the last.
3 – In the belief of the duo and its allies, their battle with Franjieh will be won if the confrontation is limited to the two major Christian blocs, the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces Party, individually or together. However, it is a loser if Saudi Arabia stands in the way of Franjieh’s victory. Its direct impact on at least half of the Sunni representatives and on Jumblatt is sufficient to impair the two-thirds quorum and the likely majority. What amounts to a duo about the Kingdom’s ambivalent positions. Some say that she will not be named and is not concerned, and some say that her position is after the election of the president and not before him, while what MP Wael Bou Faour is saying is that Saudi Arabia is resolute in refusing to elect Franjieh. Berri did not once hear from Jumblatt that Saudi Arabia rejects Franjieh. Also counted in the duo is the presence of the change-making deputies, as long as two of them are still sitting in the parliament since January 19. Likewise, the opponent candidate Moawad and his supporters, as long as he considers himself the inheritor of his house after the first president of the Taif Agreement.