Al-Rahi Expected to Meet with Hariri in Rome over Presidential Polls
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi is scheduled to travel to Rome on Thursday to attend several religious ceremonies and is expected to meet with al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri, al-Joumhouria daily reported.
The newspaper said that al-Rahi will attend a ceremony on Saturday night on the centenary of the establishment of Saint Maroun church in Rome. President Michel Suleiman will also participate in the event.
The patriarch will attend on Sunday the canonization ceremony in St. Peter's for Pope John Paul II and his Italian predecessor John XXIII.
He will later head to France where he will meet with the Lebanese community at the Roman Catholic pilgrimage site of Lourdes.
Al-Joumhouria said that al-Rahi and Hariri held a long telephone conversation on Sunday night.
Their discussions focused on the presidential elections and the need to elect a head of state within the constitutional deadline.
According to the newspaper, al-Rahi and Hariri could meet in Rome on Sunday.
It quoted Bkirki sources as expressing their “extreme discontent” with the lack of quorum caused by the withdrawal of the majority of March 8 lawmakers from parliament after voting in the polls.
They described it as an evasion of an agreement reached in Bkirki, in which the different Christian parliamentary blocs vowed to guarantee a quorum in all the election rounds and not only the first.
The parliament will now hold a second vote on April 30, in which the winning candidate will need only a simple majority of 65 votes.
An Nahar daily said a meeting that was scheduled to be held in Bkirki between the top Maronite leaders was postponed due to al-Rahi's trip which will last until May 6.
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