was well organized adding that some wanted to "pull their ministers out of government in case Suleiman insisted on not going to Qatar."
The minority official who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Monday, did not find a reason for the president's reservations over the suspension of the Arab peace initiative, as long as Saudi Arabia was quick to declare that the initiative "won't remain on the table forever."
He defended the campaign made by some members of the parliamentary minority against the president, who is thought to Shepherd the emergence of a centrist or an independent parliamentary bloc that meets halfway with both March 8 and 14 Forces.
Although the official did not wish to answer the question of why the parliamentary minority is against the president on this point, he was incapable of hiding the concerns of the head of "Change and Reform" parliamentary bloc leader MP Michel Aoun, who fears that independent candidates would eat away from his popularity especially at Mount Lebanon. Some of the "independents" were previous allies of Aoun in the 2005 elections.
In 2005, Aoun received 72% of Christian votes.
The official was not surprised when MP Michel Murr responded to Aoun by saying: "The General has no reason to wage media and political wars against the independent (candidates) as long as he is certain of his capability of breaching his political opponents at the coming elections, and in returning to parliament at the head of a large parliamentary bloc."
"Why is Aoun preparing from now to politically eliminate the independent candidates that are not loyal to him, while being part of his political machine in the past," asked the official.
However, he admitted that the parliamentary minority is now facing problems prior to arranging its election lists, adding that the majority is also facing the same dilemma.
"This is so because the number of seats in parliament is not big enough to include that many candidates coming from many districts ," the official said.
"The majority and the minority will both find themselves incapable of agreeing to a united electoral map of their candidates and will end up asking Damascus to interfere and remove obstacles that major political powers in Lebanon are incapable of removing," the minority official said.
One particular problem that the minority according to the official would face is that of the second Shiite district in Baabda, as Hezbollah is expected to easily win the first seat. It would not be easy for the Amal movement to deliver the second Shiite seat over to a candidate from Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), as it continues to insist on nominating its own member Talal Hatoum.
Another possible clash between Amal and the FPM could occur over Jezzine and Ashrafiyeh as Aoun is calling for a Catholic and a Greek Orthodox candidate, insisting on nominating Ziad Abss, while his allies are keen on Michel Sassine.
Al-Hayat stated it has information that the Democratic Gathering would maintain nominating its leader MP Walid Jumblatt and Marwan Hamadeh, Alaeddine Terro, Mohammed al-Hajjar (from the Mustaqbal movement) with Nehmeh Tohmeh and Elie Aoun in the Shouf district.
Jumblatt will let his allies agree on the Maronite candidates by choosing between the current MP George Adwan (Lebanese Forces), Ghattas Khoury (Mustaqbal movement) and Dory Chamoun (head of the Nationalist Liberal Party). The progressive Socialist Party headed by Jumblatt does not seem to make any changes to its list of candidates at Aley or the western Bekaa as it maintains nominating its own candidates Ayman Shuqair and Abdullah Farhat for the Baabda district.
Photo: General Michel Aoun. according to political observers Aoun is extremely concerned about the formation of an independent list in the elections , because the people forming the list were his allies in the past elections
