Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea urged in an open letter on Tuesday the MPs who are boycotting the presidential election sessions to attend Wednesday’s session telling them it is not their right and is also fundamentally inconsistent with the honor bestowed upon them by the lebanese people.
“They should go to the parliament instead of wasting time with fictitious proposals and they should use their national conscience and elect a president according to their political beliefs,” Geagea said in his open letter.
““The Lebanese people gave you the honor of representing them in legislative sessions , but boycotting the presidential election sessions, disrupting the elections, and plunging the country in constitutional vacuum; not only is it not your right, but it is also fundamentally inconsistent with the delegation given to you.”
Geagea’s open letter to the boycotting MPs comes a day after Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun called for amending the constitution to allow the voters to directly cast ballots for the head of state in an attempt to resolve the presidential deadlock.
He was proposing that the election of the head of state to be done in two stages, to avoid the same scenarios that parliamentary sessions are witnessing.
Aoun, who launched his initiative during a press conference he held at his residence in Rabieh stressed that his proposal would “free the presidential elections from external factors.”
He suggested that in the first stage, Christian voters should choose two candidates, and in the second stage, all Lebanese citizens would vote to pick on of the two.
Aoun linked his proposal to the parliamentary electoral law .
He said that his initiative should be linked to the so-called Orthodox Gathering electoral draft law, in which citizens would only vote for MPs of their own sect.
“We should approve an electoral law so that each sect chooses its own MPs, which would strengthen tranquility and stability,” he said adding ” “Claims that such electoral law would entrench sectarianism are wrong.”
Aoun criticized the Taef accord
Everyone knows that there are gaps in the implementation of the Taef Accord,” he said
“Consecutive electoral laws have given Christians the right to elect only 17 of their MPs,” he stressed.
Former Prime Minister Najib Miqati on Monday slammed Aoun’s proposals to end the presidential impasse, by calling it a “coup.”
Similarly the Phalange Party which is headed by former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel slammed Aoun’s proposals to end the country’s deadlock over the presidential and parliamentary elections, calling them “impossible” demands.
The party said after its weekly politburo meeting: “Ending the crisis does not require impossible proposals, which will only exacerbate the situation.”
The Lebanese parliament failed for the seventh time in a row to hold a session to elect the country’s new president to replace Michel Suleiman whose terms ended on May 25.
The vote could not be held in all the sessions because lawmakers allied with the Iranian backed Hezbollah militant group boycotted the voting for lack of agreement on a consensus president.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri adjourned the last session to elect a new president to July 2 .
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