Geagea says Aoun can never be a consensus candidate

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Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said Future Movement leader Saad Hariri’s proposal suggesting Change and Reform bloc leader Michel Aoun as a consensus presidential candidate, was unworkable due to Aoun’s political past, LBC reported on Monday, citing a press conference that was held by the LF leader in Paris.

“Aoun cannot be considered consensual after all his political practices that are based on his memorandum of understanding with Hezbollah.”

Geagea said that Aoun’s political actions since he signed the Memorandum of Understanding with Hezbollah in 2006 make it impossible for all Lebanese parties to accept him as a president.

Geagea’s remarks come after a three hour meeting with Hariri on Sunday at his residence in the French capital.

In 2006, Aoun’s party, the Free Patriotic Movement, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Shiite party Hezbollah. The document provided a number of conditions for disarming the party and placed heavy emphasis on normalizing diplomatic relations with Syria.

The agreement reportedly gave the Iranian backed Hezbollah militant group the Christian political cover to launch the 2006 war with Israel and to send fighters to Syria to help the embattled president Basher al Assad against the mostly Sunni rebels who are trying to end the Assad dictatorship.

Over 162, 000 have died so far in the Syrian conflict according to activists including 485 Hezbollah fighters

Update: The Lebanese Forces issued a statement in which it denied the LBC report calling it inaccurate and suggesting that Hariri never proposed Aoun as a consensus candidate . LF will issue a complete report soon

According to the LF report Geagea did not say that Hariri proposed Aoun as a consensus candidate , instead he said ” Aoun is proposing himself as a consensus candidate so lets discuss it “.

Geagea urged Aoun to declare his candidacy and said that he will be the first to visit him and congratulate him if he is elected”, but added:
“Will he ( Aoun) relinquish his MOU with Hezbollah.? This is the key issue here .
Geagea added the ” ball is now in Hezbollah’s court. Let it declare its candidate.