BEIRUT: This week promises to be decisive with regard to MP Sleiman Frangieh’s proposed nomination for the presidency, as efforts have been intensified to overcome opposition from the country’s three main Christian parties to the Marada Movement leader’s presidential bid, political sources said Sunday. “Contacts are underway at various levels in this respect, including Hezbollah’s own contacts with MP Michel Aoun,” a senior source involved the presidential election issue told The Daily Star.

Meanwhile, a new round of talks between senior officials of the Future Movement and Hezbollah to be held at Speaker Nabih Berri’s residence at Ain al-Tineh Monday is expected to focus on the presidential election in the wake of Frangieh’s candidacy.

Monday’s will be the 21st dialogue session held by the two rival influential parties since last December with the aim of defusing sectarian and political tensions exacerbated by the nearly 5-year-old war in Syria.

Political sources concerned with the presidential election process expressed surprise at the objections voiced by the Free Patriotic Movement, the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb Party over the nomination of Frangieh as a candidate for the country’s top Christian post.

“These four political parties [the FPM, LF, Kataeb and Marada Movement] had met in Bkirki under the sponsorship of Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai at the beginning of the deadline for the presidential vote and have agreed that the president of the republic should be one of the leaders of these four parties who are bidding for the presidency and each of them enjoys Christian representation,” the sources said. “Why is then the objection now to Franjieh’s [nomination]? Didn’t these [four leaders] say that each of them represents a Christian popular base?” the sources added.

Rai, who is currently on a visit to Germany and who has been calling in his weekly sermons for ending the 18-month presidential vacuum, has not yet commented on Frangieh’s candidacy.

But a senior source close to Bkirke, the Maronite patriarch’s seat, said that Rai would support Frangieh or any other candidate who won inter-Christian consensus. “Without an inter-Christian consensus, there is no chance for any presidential candidate to be elected president,” the source told The Daily Star.

“The current atmosphere is conducive for a political settlement, backed by regional and international powers, who are in agreement on Frangieh’s nomination,” the source said. “But these serious efforts to break the presidential deadlock have not yet yielded any concrete results due to the absence of an inter-Christian consensus over Frangieh’s nomination.”

So far, the FPM, the LF and the Kataeb Party have kept silent on Frangieh’s proposed nomination. Aoun, the FPM leader, who is backed by the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance, was reported to be staunchly rejecting the idea of withdrawing from the presidential race in favor of Frangieh.

Frangieh last week emerged as a strong candidate to fill the vacant presidency seat following his reported meeting in Paris earlier this month with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, amid signs of regional and international support for the Marada Movement leader’s presidential bid. Hariri has yet to officially announce that he backs Frangieh’s candidacy.

Hariri spoke by telephone Saturday night with Frangieh with whom he discussed developments concerning the Zghorta MP’s candidacy.

Frangieh Wednesday confirmed that Hariri has launched an initiative to break the presidential deadlock, though he refused to deny or confirm his reported meeting with the leader of the Future Movement in Paris. He said a proposal to name him for the presidency is serious, but it is not official yet.

Hezbollah, which has refrained from commenting on Frangieh’s presidential bid, reiterated its support for Aoun as its sole candidate for the position.

“Our position is clear: We still support Gen. Michel Aoun for president,” Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mohammad Fneish, who belongs to Hezbollah, told The Daily Star.

Declining to comment on Frangieh’s proposed nomination by Hariri, he said: “Matters with regard to Frangieh’s nomination are still unclear.”

However, a Hezbollah source praised Frangieh, but maintained that Aoun is still the party’s sole candidate for the presidency.

“Sleiman Frangieh is our ally and our friend. But our presidential candidate is still Gen. Michel Aoun. We have relayed this position to Gen. Aoun,” the source told The Daily Star.

In the first Christian opposition to Frangieh’s candidacy, LF lawmaker Fadi Karam said LF chief Samir Geagea cannot back the Marada Movement leader’s presidential bid because of policy differences.

“Dr. Samir Geagea cannot support Frangieh’s candidacy because they disagree on many issues, as well as in the national strategic standpoint,” Karam told the Voice of Lebanon radio station.

Describing Frangieh as one of strong presidential candidates, he said: “The surprise was in the nomination of Hariri, who belongs to the March 14 coalition, of Frangieh who represents the opposite policy line.”

A senior Kataeb official said his party was treating Frangieh’s candidacy as “a serious initiative.”

“The Kataeb Party is engaged in a dialogue with [former] minister Franjieh and is studying all information concerning his nomination before taking the appropriate decision,” former minister Salim al-Sayegh, deputy head of the Kataeb Party, told The Daily Star.

He said the Kataeb Party will seek guarantees from any presidential candidate concerning “sovereign issues.”

“We want guarantees on sovereign issues such as a new electoral law, the composition of government, the preservation of the National Pact and partnership and Lebanon’s role in the region,” Sayegh said.

Sayegh held talks last week with Aoun and Geagea as part of the Kataeb Party’s attempts to seek a unified Christian stance on a new electoral law. “The talks also touched on the two parties’position on Frangieh’s nomination for the presidency,” he said.

A newly formed 10-member parliamentary committee tasked with drafting an electoral law is scheduled to hold its first meeting in Parliament Monday.

The committee, which represents the major parliamentary blocs in the March 8 and March 14 camps, will strive to reach an agreement on a new law to replace the 1960 voting system adopted in the last parliamentary elections of 2009. The committee has two-month deadline to finish its job.