Report: Berri Slams Claims that 'Muslims Choosing Christian President'

Speaker Nabih Berri dismissed the recent criticisms that the Muslim powers in Lebanon hold sway over naming presidential candidates in the country in the wake of an initiative launched by Mustaqbal Movement chief MP Saad Hariri to nominate Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh as president, reported the daily al-Mustaqbal on Monday.

The speaker's visitors told the daily that “Berri considers such claims as a sectarian lie.”

He instead stressed that Franjieh's nomination adheres to meetings held under the sponsorship of the Maronite patriarchate that brought together the four main Maronite powers in the country, Franjieh included.

The gatherers at these meetings agreed that any one of them could be a presidential candidate, explained Berri according to his visitors on Sunday.

These Christian figures are Franjieh, Kataeb Party leader Amin Gemayel, Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun, and Lebanese Forces head Samir Geagea.

Media reports last week had said that there is disappointment among Christian powers that Hariri, Berri, and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat had taken the initiative and name a presidential candidate without consulting them.

Franjieh 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.