Maronite patriarch Bechara-al Rai. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai said during his Sunday homily that not a single MP "dares to condemn the obstruction of the election of a president.” “There is not a single representative in the parliamentary blocs who dares, with the strength of the objection of conscience, to condemn the obstruction of the election of a president,” Rai said.
Rai's comments come as two Forces of Change MPs, Najat Aoun Saliba and Melhem Khalaf, continue to hold sit-in in Parliament to call for a Parliament session that remains open until MPs elect a head of state. Aoun Saliba and Khalaf commenced their sit-in after the failure of the most recent election session in January. Other parties, meanwhile, regularly call for the fast election of a new head of state and for a compromise around a name, but none has taken any concrete actions.
For the first time in its history, Lebanon is experiencing a double executive power vacuum. The country has been without a president since Oct. 31, when Michel Aoun's term ended, while a caretaker cabinet has been handling government affairs since May 2022, when Najib Mikati's government assumed that status in the wake of parliamentary elections.
Parliament has held 11 failed presidential election sessions to name Aoun's successor.
“Not a single MP is able to condemn the impoverishment and displacement of the people, and the destruction of the state in its various institutions, due to mortgaging the position of the presidency of the republic to a person or for personal or factional interests!” Rai said.
Rai was speaking on the occasion of “World Day of Catholic Schools” in the presence of Catholic school teachers and principals from across Lebanon. In this context, the patriarch said, “We need to prepare a generation of youth whose loyalty is to Lebanon, not to people or another country.”
Addressing officials of political parties, he asked: "What education do you provide for your youth? What loyalty to the homeland do you instill in them?" He then added, "What we need in Lebanon is to prepare youth whose loyalty is to Lebanon, not to people or another country! Courageous youth who are free to speak the truth.”
According to the Arab Youth Survey conducted in 2020, more than 54 percent of young Lebanese wish to leave their country, alongside 54 percent of their contemporaries in war-stricken Syria and 58 percent of young Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.