Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leader Gebran Bassil. (Credit: AFP/file)
BEIRUT — The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) has agreed with other parties on a candidate to oppose Hezbollah's favored presidential contender Sleiman Frangieh, FPM head Gebran Bassil told Kuwaiti press Tuesday, albeit without providing a name.
He stressed the need for all parties, including Hezbollah, to come to an agreement on the presidential election, now nearing its eighth month of deadlock.
Lebanon has been without a president since FPM founder Michel Aoun's term ended on Oct. 31, 2022.
In an interview with Kuwaiti daily al-Qabas published on Tuesday, Gebran Bassil said that a "minimal agreement has become possible" within the opposition on the name of a candidate, but that "all the elements for the election of a president are not yet in place."
"We are still missing the election mechanism and the programs, which are more important to us than the president himself."
Discussions on the ‘political project’
"Hezbollah says the opposition has no candidate, which is not true. There was a candidate [Michel Moawad] whom neither we nor Hezbollah accepted, and now there is an agreement on a candidate" between the FPM and the opposition, Bassil confirmed.
However, he refused to specify which candidate had been chosen.
Recent press reports suggest that Jihad Azour, former Finance Minister and current head of the International Monetary Fund's Middle East and Central Asia Department, might be a candidate to oppose Frangieh.
He also called on Hezbollah to "put aside its methods of imposing and opposing" and move instead towards "an acceptable national consensus and democratic competition via a vote in Parliament."
Parliament has so far met 11 times to vote on a new president, without success.
Bassil vowed to "stand by him and support him" if Frangieh were to win a new voting session, "but we will also oppose him when necessary."
The FPM leader also criticized statements critical of talks between the FPM and the opposition. "People close to Hezbollah are putting out messages that if you're not with them, you're against them. This logic doesn't hold water with me."
Though turbulent in recent months, relations between Bassil's FPM and Hezbollah "continue despite the deep wounds" and that communication had not been interrupted, he said. "But there will be no meeting" between the two parties "in the short term."
After a meeting held on Tuesday afternoon in the presence of former President and founder of the Free Patriotic Movement Michel Aoun, the FPM announced that they "affirm on the roadmap agreed previously which is headed by the head of the [parliamentary] bloc on the part of agreeing with the opposition on a presidential candidate." The statement also said that that a presidential candidate "would be announced after setting all the options and the finalization of negotiations in relation to the program [of the president] and the election process and securing the biggest support for him on the rule of consensus and not by force." FPM also said that if consensus was not reached MPs should "seek a democratic competition through voting in Parliament."
The relationship between FPM and Hezbollah is strained due to Hezbollah’s support for Bassil's rival Frangieh, as well as Hezbollah-aligned ministers taking part in recent caretaker cabinet meetings, which the FPM has boycotted.
