Report: Hariri's Initiative Calls for Ending Presidential Vacuum, 'Fortifying' Taef Accord
Mustaqbal Movement leader MP Saad Hariri will unveil his political initiative when “all conditions for its approval are available,” reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Monday.
It said that the initiative includes ending the presidential vacuum and fortifying the Taef Accord.
It also demands the start of a new political phase in Lebanon “aimed at creating national understandings that would emphasize stability and reactivate constitutional institutions away from attempts of obstruction.”
“Hariri will announce his proposal at the time he deems appropriate,” prominent Mustaqbal sources told al-Joumhouria.
The sources did not deny that differences exist between the Mustaqbal and Lebanese Forces over the initiative, particularly over movement leader MP Saad Hariri's potential nomination of Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh as president.
“These differences do not mean that ties between the two sides will be severed,” they explained.
“Contacts between them are ongoing as demonstrated by the recent visit of Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq to LF chief Samir Geagea in Maarab,” they continued.
Geagea is a presidential candidate alongside his rival Change and Reform bloc head MP Michel Aoun.
The sources added: “The Mustaqbal Movement has never shied away from backing Geagea and it had voted for him during the polls and its lawmakers have attended all electoral sessions, keeping in mind that the LF chief himself had declared that he is prepared to abandon his nomination if consensus is reached on another figure.”
Franjieh has emerged as a presidential candidate in recent weeks as part of a political settlement aimed at ending the vacuum in the country's top post that started in May 2014 with the end of President Michel Suleiman's term and the failure of the political blocs to elect a successor.
Several officials have voiced their indirect objection to Franjieh's nomination.
Rumors of a rift between the Mustaqbal Movement and LF emerged in the wake of Hariri's nomination of Franjieh seeing as Geagea is a presidential candidate himself.
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