Hezbollah wants 'a president who respects and recognizes the role of the Resistance'

BEIRUT — Hezbollah wants "a president who respects and recognizes the role of the Resistance," the head of the party's parliamentary group Mohammad Raad said Sunday, four days before a third parliamentary session devoted to electing a new president.

The mandate of the current president, Michel Aoun, expires on Oct. 31, raising fears of a presidential vacuum in the absence of a political agreement on a candidate to assume the office.

On two occasions, members of Parliament have failed to reach a consensus on a new president, and political negotiations on the matter between the various parties do not appear to be progressing. While some political forces, such as Hezbollah and its allies, are calling for the election of a "consensus" president, other parties, such as the Lebanese Forces, are calling for a president who would openly confront Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, although it does not hold a majority in Parliament, seems to have succeeded so far in uniting its allies, as the legislature's first two sessions aimed at naming a president failed due to lack of agreement. 

Raad, who was speaking at a partisan event in Yohmor, South Lebanon, said he wanted the election of "a president who works in the interest of the country and who has courage: not someone who obeys American orders, but the interests of the nation."

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, a rival of Hezbollah, also spoke Sunday on the subject of Lebanon's next president. "The LF will not accept just any president of the republic. No one wants a defiant president; what we want is a president who can launch the necessary rescue operation, given the state Lebanon has fallen into," he said, adding, in an apparent reference to Hezbollah and its allies, "and if they think that such a president is a defiant president, so be it."

In remarks reported by the state-run National News Agency, Geagea said that "the other side is talking about a consensus president, who in the best case would do nothing or act in the interest of this side, as has been the case for six years."

Aoun was elected president in 2016 with the support of Hezbollah, which did all it could to ensure he reached this position, after a two-and-a-half year presidential vacuum due to the blockage of parliamentary electoral sessions by Hezbollah and its allies.

On Saturday, the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil, another ally of Hezbollah and unofficial candidate for the presidency, declared himself "ready for dialogue with everyone" in relation to the election of a new president.