President Michel Aoun met with Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai before Easter Mass on Sunday morning. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — “The elections will happen, and all preparations are ready,” President Michel Aoun assured Sunday morning after meeting Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai before participating in Easter Mass, the state-run National News Agency reported. Parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place on May 15.
Here’s what we know:
• “We have reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, hoping that it will positively affect the situation in Lebanon,” Aoun also remarked. Earlier this month, an International Monetary Fund team reached a preliminary agreement with Lebanon on a financial rescue package. The package is pending approval from the IMF’s executive board and will be dependent on Lebanon enacting a range of reforms, including passing a capital control law.
• Aoun also commented on the upcoming papal visit. “The visit of Pope Francis carries hope for Lebanon, and today we live on the hope of the resurrection, so we will not despair while we are alive,” he asid.
• Rai and Aoun met last week at Baabda Palace and discussed preparations for Pope Francis’ Lebanon visit. Rai said that Aoun's visit to the Vatican in March “was very successful, and the proof is the visit of the Pope to Lebanon, which will take place next June.” The Vatican has announced that the visit will take place on June 12 and 13.
• In the context of the upcoming elections, Rai on Sunday remarked that “the Lebanese do not want a substitute or partner in the state. They are waiting for the moment when control of the country will be lifted and hegemony will be surrounded. They expect that the politicization and blocking of the judiciary and administration will end…and that the national interest will take precedence over personal and electoral benefits.” This will allow there to be only “one Republic, one legitimacy, one reference for weapons, a single reference for decision-making and a unified Lebanese identity,” he added. The Maronite patriarch regularly speaks out against non-state weapons, while the political party Aoun founded, the Free Patriotic Movement, is aligned with Hezbollah, which has retained its armed wing since the end of the Civil War.
• In his remarks, Rai also called for the “sovereignty of sister states to be respected” and to end campaigns that target them as they “do not serve the interest of Lebanon but those of foreign countries.” A week ago diplomatic ties between Beirut and the Gulf countries were restored upon Saudi and Kuwaiti ambassadors’ return to the country. The ties had been severed in October following the broadcast of remarks by the then information minister on Saudi Arabia’s intervention in the Yemen conflict.