France informs Hezbollah that the Franjieh / Salam barter deal is dead

Hezbollah was informed that the proposed barter deal which calls for Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh as President of the Republic and ambassador Nawaf Salam as Prime Minister is dead, according to a report by Lebanon Debate web site

Salam is a Lebanese diplomat, jurist, and academic. He was elected on 9 November 2017 as judge on the International Court of Justice for the 2018–2027 term .He served as Lebanon’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York from 2007 to 2017, during which period he held the positions of President of the Security Council and Vice President of the General Assembly

This development comes after France decided to invite more presidential candidates .

The list of candidates that will be receiving the invitation to come to Paris has not been made public . France reportedly is coordinating this issue with its partners

Franjieh , the presidential candidate of the Iranian backed Hezbollah militant group was reportedly quizzed by the French and was asked to provide certain guarantees

One of the guarantees Franjieh offered was that that he would not block the work of the reformist government, in rescuing the country from its economic crisis “

But Hezbollah reportedly objected to that because the party is opposed to any IMF involvement .

This according to observers indicates that Franjieh will not be his own man, like president Aoun before him and any guarantee he will offer is worthless , since the last decision will be Hezbollah’s

Following his return to Lebanon Franjieh met with Hezbollah Monday night .

The problem for Franjieh is twofold: Until now he doesn’t have a majority in parliament that would allow him to win an election, and he is opposed by the three main Maronite Christian parties, which would deny him any communal legitimacy, since presidents come from the Maronite community. 

According to political observers, even in the unlikely event that he could be voted into office, his term would be highly contentious because of hostility from within his community.

Franjieh met on Tuesday with the visiting Qatari delegation which is trying to identify a presidential candidate that will be able to unify the country

Many observers are of the opinion that Franjieh will soon declare that he is not in the running. After all he never officially announced his candidacy, precisely to avoid the humiliation of being forced to backtrack on this front.