Home  News They came, they saw, they adjourned to October 23 |
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They came, they saw, they adjourned to October 23 |
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Written by Daily Star
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Berri puts off next step in presidential election, vows to conduct dialogue aimed at consensus
Speaker Nabih Berri on Tuesday postponed the Parliament session to elect a new president until Oct. 23, but his "positive" meetings with parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri sparked hope for a deal. Berri told Tele Liban that he waited in his office for the required quorum for the election to be fulfilled, "but when I was told about the number of MPs who attended I decided to adjourn the session."
Describing his meetings with Hariri as "positive," Berri said he would be holding discussions with various parliamentary blocs "from now until the next session on October 23."
Asked whether he had plans to seek the help of foreign and/or regional forces to reach a consensus about the next president, Berri said his efforts were "strictly Lebanese because the election is a purely Lebanese issue."
At his office in Parliament, Berri met with Hariri twice, once before the MPs gathered in the chamber, and again after the postponement.
Hariri described his meetings with Berri as "positive and conciliatory," and vowed to continue efforts to reach an agreement on the election of "a president for all the Lebanese."
"I am optimistic," said Hariri, who earlier shared a warm handshake with one of Berri's top allies, MP Ali Hassan Khalil, one of the two only opposition MPs who entered the chamber.
More than 75 MPs headed to Parliament on Tuesday, with 68 from the majority entering the chamber along with seven opposition legislators, including four from Berri's Liberation and Development bloc: Ali Bazzi, Ayyoub Hmayyed, Abdul Latif al-Zein and Khalil.
The rest of the opposition, which has 57 seats, boycotted the session.
Several Hizbullah MPs were seen engrossed in heavy discussions with their opponents outside the Assembly Hall, just before the bell rang three times calling for MPs to enter.
"Today's session has been adjourned to October 23 at 10:00 am for lack of a quorum," Berri said in a statement read out by his representative shortly afterward.
"From now until October 23, we have a real chance for consensus," Berri told reporters from his office.
MPs arrived in convoys of cars with tinted windows, as well as decoys, and were escorted by hundreds of troops and police, who also lined roads leading to Parliament from the nearby Phoenicia InterContinental Hotel, where many pro-government MPs have been staying.
Some majority MPs came carrying posters of assassinated allies. Portraits of the slain MPs and Lebanese flags were also placed on the seats they once held in the chamber, as a symbolic tribute to their absence even after most of the seats have been replaced by new MPs from the majority camp.
"Despite everything, we continue to seek constructive dialogue ... to salvage the presidential election and save Lebanon from the danger of falling into a vacuum," Deputy Speaker Farid Makari said, reading out a statement issued by the majority camp after the session was postponed.
MP Walid Jumblatt, head of the pro-government Democratic Gathering bloc, vowed that the majority will continue its "democratic fight" and remained doubtful that there would be an agreement.
"If there was any chance of an agreement, it would have happened by now," Jumblatt said. "There can't be agreement between a dictatorial Syria and a democratic Lebanon."
Hizbullah MPs were optimistic despite Jumblatt's comments.
"We didn't attend the assembly because there was no full agreement on the president," Hizbullah MP Ali Mokdad told The Daily Star.
The opposition had announced in advance that it would do just that.
Mokdad said that if all the opposition members attended a Parliament session before prior agreement, it would solve nothing because "discussions between 128 MPs would be chaotic and useless."
He added that neither a pro-American nor a pro-Syrian president was the answer.
"We need to agree on a president who is equal distance from all the Lebanese factions," he said, adding that this will be "difficult but not impossible."
Mokdad also said that the president should also be "equal distance from regional forces."
The MP warned against electing a president by simple majority, as pro-government parties have threatened to do, as that would drag Lebanon into further divisions and the possibility of "two presidents."
Under the Constitution, Parliament has until November 24 to elect a president.
Current President Emile Lahoud has said that if there were no agreement on his successor by that date, he would name the army commander, General Michel Suleiman, to head an interim government.
But Youth and Sports Minister Ahmed Fatfat warned that that if no consensus is reached by October 23, the majority will move to elect a president with a simple majority.
Fatfat also said that the issue of disarming Hizbullah has been postponed as one of the steps to get the two sides to agree on a president.
"We need real dialogue to reach an agreement, but if that doesn't work we will not risk leaving the presidential seat vacant," he said. - With agencies
By Rym Ghazal
Daily Star staff
http://dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=85593
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