Report: Mustaqbal Seeking to Pressure Aoun to Abandon Presidential Race

Al-Mustaqbal Movement would reportedly agree on the appointment of Commando Regiment chief Brig. Gen. Chamel Roukoz as army chief if Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun abandoned his presidential aspirations.

Al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Wednesday that the adviser of al-Mustaqbal Movement chief Saad Hariri, Nader Hariri, informed the aide of Speaker Nabih Berri, Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, that the movement doesn’t reject the appointment of Roukoz, Aoun's son-in-law, on condition the FPM chief withdraws from the presidential race.

Sources close to the March 8 alliance told the newspaper that “al-Mustaqbal rejects to link the fate of the appointment of a new Internal Security Forces chief with the appointment of a new army commander.”

“Al-Mustaqbal doesn't object to the appointment of Roukoz in case Aoun discards his presidential ambitions.”

Conflicting reports emerged recently on whether Hariri agreed on the appointment of Roukoz as army chief.

The reports had said that Hariri informed Aoun about his consent on the appointment of Roukoz as military chief in return for the appointment of head of the Internal Security Force Information Branch Imad Othman as ISF chief.

Aoun has allegedly been seeking to receive political consensus on the appointment of Roukoz as army chief as part of a package for the appointment of other top security officers, but Aoun scrapped such reports.

Roukoz's tenure ends in October while the term of army commander Gen. Jean Qahwaji expires at the end of September.

The military posts in Lebanon are suffering as the result of the months-long presidential vacuum in light of the parliament's failure to elect a successor for Michel Suleiman whose tenure ended in May last year. The vacuum also threatens the ISF as chief Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous is set to retire in June.

H.K.

G.K.