The Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai. (Credit: NNA)
Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai on Sunday urged Lebanese MPs to elect a new president, reproaching them, almost a week after the end of Michel Aoun's mandate, for their "inaction," the state-run National News Agency reported.
Parliament has convened four times since the beginning of the election period in late August to attempt to select a new president, but has so fair failed to do so due to the absence of consensus between political parties.
Parliament is scheduled meet on Thursday for a fifth attempt at choosing Aoun's successor. Since the end of Aoun's term on Monday, Lebanon has had a total vacuum in its executive branch: no president and a caretaker cabinet in charge of dispatching the country's affairs.
"You want Lebanon to be a single entity, a modern state? Elect a president!" Rai told parliamentarians during his Sunday homily. "You, leaders, are responsible for the vacuum. Today, you are responsible for the election of a new head of state. Why are you delaying, escaping your responsibilities and blocking the deadline?" he asked. "Why are you wasting time? Perhaps because you are not free to make your own decisions? Then what is the value of your parliamentary mandate? What is the value of your representation of the people if there is no president at the head of the republic?"
Not a mere usher
"Some people think that by delaying the presidential election some projects can be achieved, as if the election had become secondary," the prelate said. Rai also said that "Lebanon is not a commercial enterprise to be bailed out, but a nation to be built on the basis of faith and loyalty."
Rai added that "a president is not useless. He is not a mere bailiff of the republic, but he is its governor and the guarantor of its institutions' operation." Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said that his caretaker cabinet can assume the prerogatives and powers of the president of the republic.
"Without a president, who is concerned with Lebanese foreign relations and contracts, the agreement with the International Monetary Fund will be compromised, as well as the realization of reforms and action at the judicial level," the Maronite Church's head continued.
Lebanon has signed an agreement with the IMF to provide $3 billion in aid over four years on the condition that economic recovery reforms are adopted. Those reforms are yet to be undertaken.
Before Aoun's departure as president, Rai regularly called for the election of a president who would defend the interests of Lebanon and stand up to Hezbollah and its arsenal, which Rai views as the armed wing of Iran.
Audi wants 'president who does not covet anything for himself'
For his part, the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Beirut Elias Audi called on MPs to "meet and elect a president capable of launching a reform project, a president who does not covet anything for himself and considers his seat as a temporary one that he will leave at the end of his term."
In his Sunday homily, Audi called for the election of a president who "will carry out his mission with honesty, probity and fear of God," adding that "then a government will be formed and the work of reform will begin."
Audi urged the MPs, "especially the Christians" among them, to unite around "the idea of a rescue president" to get Lebanon out of the serious crisis it is going through. "Let them hear the lamentations of the people and remember that they were elected to represent them and defend their interests," he said.
Among the larger Christian blocs, the Lebanese Forces voted in the last presidential election sessions for Michel Moawad (Independent/Zgharta), while MPs from the Free Patriotic Movement, founded by Michel Aoun, cast blank ballots.