Maronite Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi rejected any link between the type of government that Lebanon now has and the presidential election
In an interview with Al-Jadeed channel, Al-Ra’i said: “The type of government has nothing to do with the president’s decision. The president’s powers expire at the end of his term, and on October 31, his term ends and his powers fall.”
His comments come days after outgoing President Michel Aoun finally admitted last Thursday that he might not leave the Baabda Palace upon the end of his presidential term on October 31.
“This (caretaker) government is not eligible to assume my powers after the end of my term, and I consider that it does not enjoy the national legitimacy to replace the president of the republic,” Aoun said in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper al-Joumhouria.
“That’s why if no president is elected and if no government is formed before October 31, there will be a question mark over my next step and over the decision that I might take,” Aoun added.
Retired top Security official General Khaled Hemaded predicted last month during an interview that the aging Aoun ( 87) is not planning to leave the Baabda presidential palace when his term expires on October 31, 2022 and it seems that it took Aoun less than one month to prove Hemade’s predictions
Rai affirmed that he “expects president Aoun, to do his best with all concerned to elect a President of the Republic before the end of his term, and to “do the impossible to achieve this objective “
He added, “The presidential vacancy is a “crime” and we condemn it. We have good qualified people for this position , and it is not our job to disclose names.”
And he added: “They played that game before on the late Patriarch Sfeir and blamed him for the collapse in the event that he did not put forward names for the presidency, so he presented 5 names but they did not choose any of them.”
Type of president needed:
He said , “I have not been convinced in all my life of the idea of a strong president.” For me, every Maronite who has the qualifications can be a president of the republic, “and I am not against anyone.”
He said, “We want a president who unites and does not have personal interests, and to be impartial and sovereign .”
In response to a question about the candidacy of Suleiman Franjieh, he said: “Why not” and he knows himself if he is able to unite the country , and if there is consensus on him, so be it, and if the consensus is on someone else, so be it too “.
Commenting on the speech of the head of the Lebanese Forces party, Samir Geagea, about a ” confrontational president “, he replied: “I haven’t heard the speech ,” and I don’t know what he means by a “confrontational president ”
Commenting on the election of the army chief to the presidency, Al-Rai stressed that ” if there is consensus on him or anyone else I have no problem “
Commenting on the possibility of President Aoun staying in the presidential palace, Al-Ra i said: “I advise him and say to him, ‘forget it ‘, and to get out the same way he entered.”
Regarding the election of a president that goes against the wishes of Hezbollah, he said: “The party has its own opinion, just like the the Sunnis and everyone else. The president is for all the Lebanese, and his election is not limited to Maronites “
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