MP Sethrida Geagea of the Lebanese Forces parliamentary bloc on Friday blasted Speaker Nabih Berri for “insisting that he will not call for a presidential election session unless there is a prior agreement.”
“This stance in itself is a major constitutional violation, seeing as the constitution does not stipulate consensus but rather a democratic election,” Geagea said.
“This is a new chapter of the attempt by a group of Lebanese to impose their will on others, either through force or through abusing their authority,” the MP added.
Geagea called on Berri to “immediately call for an open-ended session with successive rounds as per the constitution, in order to elect a president for the country because there is no solution of the vacuum crisis other than this solution.”
Her comments come after Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri called on the heads of parliamentary blocs and political parties to participate in a seven-day dialogue at the parliament in September to set the stage for open-ended sessions to elect a president.
Berri was speaking on Thursday at an event organized by this Amal Movement to mark the 45th anniversary of the disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadr during a visit to Libya in 1978.
Berri said he was working to ensure the presidential elections were held very soon.
He affirmed that the elections can’t be achieved by imposing a candidate on others or disrupting the work of the legislative and executive constitutional institutions.
Addressing his rivals as snitches , he said: “You have mistaken the address, and you don’t know who I am,” Berri tsaid advising them to save transit money and costs for staying in hotels.
Discedits president Aoun
Berri adddressed the issue of the oil and gas exploration in Lebanese waters.
He responded to the claim of the Free Patriotic Movement that former President Michel Aoun made the achievement, saying that the work began in 2002 when Aoun was in Paris, and that his Development and Liberation bloc presented a proposal in 2010, which was approved in August 2010.
Lebanon has been without a president since the end of October 2023 when Aoun’s term expired .
The parliament failed in 12 sessions to elect a president , primarily because of the lack of a qurom.
Paliament Speaker Nabih Berri a staunch ally of Hezbollah blocked the qurom following every session by making sure that all his allies leave the parliament after the first round.
According to the Lebanese constitution if no candidate secures two-third of the parliamentary vote in the first round the parliament should remain in session until the candidate that secures a simple majority of half plus one of the votes gets elected .
Hezbollah , whose candiidate is Suleiman Franjieh, a close friend of Syrian dicataor Badsahar al Assad has with some help from the French leadership been trying to get his candidate elected . During the last session Franjieh secured 51 votes in the first round while the opposition’s candidate Jihad Azour , a former minister and the head of the IMF in the middle East seured 60 votes but one of his votes went missing . Reports suggested that Berri was behind the missing vote.
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