BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri said on Monday that he is still hopeful that the national dialogue will prove successful despite the lack of progress on a number of pressing issues that were on the agenda at a recently concluded round of discussions.
"I was surprised during the last day of dialogue how some of the attendees changed their stances and their motivation dropped... however, it is necessary to keep trying during the session set for Sept. 5," Berri said in remarks published in As-Safir newspaper.
Despite the lack of progress, Berri said "dialogue remains the only security umbrella [shield] for politics amid the paralysis of Constitutional institutions."
But if the dialogue needs to yield results, he said. Otherwise it "drains the body of the ailing state."
A three-day national dialogue session at Berri's residence last week between the country's political leaders failed to produce a breakthrough in Lebanon's most pressing issues, such as the absence of a president and the paralysis of the Cabinet and Parliament.
Lebanon's political elite referred an administrative decentralization proposal to Parliament’s joint committees and sought to establish workshops to pave the way for the establishment of a senate. A new dialogue session is scheduled for Sept. 5.
Turning his attention to Parliament, which is elected along sectarian and party lines, Berri said he feels like he is the head of the Senate rather than the Parliament, which in principle represents all Lebanese regardless of sect.
"In truth, I am not the head of Parliament but Senate, which you can identify by the electoral system adopted and the division of constituencies."
What Lebanon needs, Berri said, is a Parliament whose membership is elected on the basis of proportional representation.
"We definitely don't need another sectarian council," he added.
The Taif Accord brought about the end to the Civil War in 1990. According to the agreement, a national parliament would be elected based solely on parity between Christian and Muslim MPs.
A senate would be established in order to ensure that the rights of various confessions are preserved and administrative decentralization would ensue. But 27 years after the Taif Accord was signed, none of these stipulations have been enacted.
Rai: Elect president first, then implement Taif Accord
Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The influential Maronite Church strongly opposes any political reforms mentioned in the Taif Accord before the election of a president, sources in Bkirki said Sunday, in the latest snub to rival leaders who failed to make any breakthroughs in the presidential stalemate or a new voting system during their talks last week. Meanwhile, Speaker Nabih Berri has called on Parliament to meet Monday to choose a successor to former President Michel Sleiman, whose six-year term ended in May 2014. However, Parliament is destined to fail to convene, as in the previous 42 abortive sessions, over a lack of quorum, thus heralding a further prolongation of the presidential vacuum, now in its third year.
Parliament has been unable to meet for more than two years as lawmakers from MP Michel Aoun’s bloc, Hezbollah’s bloc and some of its March 8 allies have consistently boycotted sessions, thwarting a quorum.
In a weekend speech, Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai implicitly warned feuding parties against delving into topics stipulated in the Taif Accord before acting to end the presidential vacuum.
“What is the use of raising all [reform] topics before the election of a president who is alone entrusted with raising them and looking into them through a Parliament which is the place normally entitled and authorized to consult, vote and make a decision [on reforms]?” Rai asked during a ceremony at MP Walid Jumblatt’s palace at the Chouf mountain town of Mukhtara Saturday marking the 15th anniversary of the Christian-Druze reconciliation following sectarian fighting in the region during the 1975-90 Civil War.
“Patriarch Rai has sent a strong message to national dialogue leaders that political reforms stipulated in the Taif Accord cannot be implemented before the election of a president,” a senior aide to Rai told The Daily Star, commenting on the patriarch’s speech in Mukhtara. “The patriarch wanted to reaffirm his policy line to which he is committed, that the election of a president is top priority because this step is the key to resolving all the country’s crises,” he said. “The Constitution calls for the election of a head of state as a first step.
“The patriarch fears that bringing up political reforms now will be an additional cause for new differences [between rival factions] that will further aggravate the political crisis,” the same source said.
Having failed to make any progress in the presidential election crisis and a new vote system, the two main items on the agenda, during their three-day national dialogue sessions last week, the leaders, from the opposing March 8 and March 14 camps as well as independent politicians, shifted their attention to the creation of a senate and administrative decentralization, two items stipulated in the Taif Accord that ended the 1975-90 Civil War.
They agreed to set up a committee of experts that would study the creation of a senate. They also referred an administrative decentralization proposal to Parliament’s joint committees and sought to establish workshops that would lead to the establishment of a senate, which analysts saw as an attempt to distract the public from the failure of dialogue. A new dialogue session has been set for Sept. 5.
In his speech in Mukhtara, Rai blasted the obstruction of the presidential election which, he said, has “entirely paralyzed Parliament, crippled the government’s work, created chaos in public institutions, led to a halt in appointments, led to the extension of terms [of officials at key state posts] and paralyzed economic activity.”
Recalling that the Christian-Druze reconciliation has restored normal life in the Chouf mountain, Rai called for “a political reconciliation” between the March 8 and March 14 parties and centrists aimed at facilitating the election of a president.
“The election of a president needs senior statesmen from both sides who realize that the solution can only be reached in Lebanon by giving priority to the country’s interest,” Rai said. Rai also led a Mass to inaugurate the restoration of Al-Saydeh Church in Mukhtara.
The ceremony marking the 15th anniversary of the Christian-Druze reconciliation was attended by prominent Christian and Muslim political and religious figures, including Army commander Gen. Jean Kahwagi; representatives of Berri, Prime Minister Tammam Salam, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Aoun and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah; former presidents Michel Sleiman and Amine Gemayel; and a number of lawmakers – in addition to Jumblatt, his wife and his two sons.
Addressing the ceremony, Jumblatt expressed hope that the inauguration of Al-Saydeh Church would lead in the coming days to the “election of a president so that all of us can protect Lebanon from strong winds,” a reference to regional conflicts.
“We hope in the coming days to see solutions to our complicated problems so that stalled institutions can regain their roles,” Jumblatt said. He held onto the mountain reconciliation, saying that the war between Christian and Druze militias will not return.
“At a time when fires are raging in the Arab and Muslim region and terrorism has surpassed the borders of countries and reached the whole world, we in Lebanon uphold the climate of reconciliation and rapprochement among the Lebanese and send a message to the world that Lebanon can serve as a unique example in protecting plurality and diversity,” the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party said.
Despite political differences over some issues, Jumblatt said the Lebanese factions uphold the principles of “reconciliation, national unity, civil peace, coexistence and dialogue.”
Hariri also praised the Christian-Druze reconciliation, saying it had fortified sectarian coexistence. “The reconciliation established a basic foundation for solid coexistence among the Lebanese and ended a painful page that will not recur,” Hariri tweeted.
Meanwhile, Labor Minister Sejaan Azzi ruled out holding the presidential election anytime soon, but said that names of new candidates for the presidency were being proposed as a way out of the deadlock.
“There are no signs about the possible election of a president in the short or medium term if no compromise developments occur in the region, or if the political class in Lebanon doesn’t come to its senses,” Azzi told the MTV station. “I think the search has begun for names of new candidates for the presidency, along with the current candidates,” he said, without mentioning any names.
“What matters is that the presidential election takes place and that the republic remains more important than personal ambitions,” Azzi added.
The two main contenders for the country’s top Christian post are Aoun and MP Sleiman Frangieh. Aoun is backed by Hezbollah and some of its March 8 allies and the Lebanese Forces, while Frangieh is supported by Berri, Hariri, Jumblatt and some independent lawmakers.
Hezbollah renewed its call for the election of Aoun as president as the only solution to the power vacuum.
“We in Hezbollah are seeking to resolve the political crisis through speeding up the election of a president who, for us, is Gen. Michel Aoun,” Hezbollah MP Hasan Fadlallah told a party ceremony in the southern town of Ainata Sunday. He called on the Future Movement and his March 14 rivals to engage into a dialogue with Aoun as the “only way if they wanted to tackle the presidency file.”
