Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri presiding over an election session. (Credit: Photo archive/Parliament Flickr account)
As in a stock market, the presidential candidates’ names go up and down per the tubulations of domestic politics. The most recent name leaked to the press in the past few days — former ambassador to the Vatican and former boss of the army’s intelligence service, General Georges Khoury — is an example.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri put Khoury’s name forward. The two are “very close,” several sources said.
Why now? Do political actors think the former officer has a better chance than Army Chief Joseph Aoun, whose candidacy is not unanimously endorsed?
This is not the first time that Khoury’s name has been mentioned. His candidature was suggested among others a few months ago by the Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai but was ignored. According to many observers, Khoury’s name was simply suggested to test the waters, or simply to divert attention.
“It is a new maneuver by Nabih Berri, who is continuing his sidestep and who is seeking to circumvent the National Moderation bloc’s initiative,” said Charles Jabbour, spokesman for the Lebanese Forces (LF).
This bloc includes MPs previously affiliated with Hariri. It has been trying for several weeks to make a breakthrough to have a president elected by suggesting that the various political actors hold consultations within Parliament, followed by an open-ended electoral session. This approach has displeased Berri, who insists on keeping the process under his control.
The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) has sponsored Georges Khoury’s candidacy in coordination with Berri. It stressed that this is not the case and that the talks that took place between Berri and FPM leader Gebran Bassil “simply raised the idea of a third option, without going into names,” an FPM official told L’Orient-Le Jour.
However, former FPM MP Eddy Maalouf said that “what must be learned from the leak is that the parliament speaker has not issued any statement debunking the information, since Georges Khoury’s name was mentioned in the media.”
“It is safe to conclude that Berri would be willing, behind the scenes and not publicly, to consider a third option, in particular someone with a profile similar to that of Georges Khoury,” he added.
Amal and Hezbollah believe the conditions that would lead to the election of a president have yet to ripen — at least not before the end of the war in the south — even if Hezbollah continues to say that the two issues are not linked to each other.
“It is probably to pave the way for the period to come that Nabih Berri put forward the name of Georges Khoury, just to test the waters,” said Maalouf.
Khoury is on good terms with Amal and Hezbollah, as well as with former President Emile Lahoud, close to the Mar. 8 camp. He also has close ties to Syria. The former officer was appointed ambassador to the Vatican in 2008 after serving successively as chief of the Army’s intelligence services in Mount Lebanon and then as general director of the Army’s intelligence services. This probably explains why he would be well accepted by Amal and Hezbollah once a third option is agreed upon.
However, officials in these two parties were not flexible when asked about his candidacy. “Our candidate is Sleiman Frangieh. Nothing has changed for us,” Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif Nabulsi told L’Orient-Le Jour. The same statement was given in Ain al-Tineh.
Status quo
Like the LF, the FPM refused to comment on names and just reiterated its opposition to the two candidates, which are deemed serious: Marada Leader Sleiman Frangieh, and Army Chief Joseph Aoun. Given the current status quo, the FPM is not at liberty at this stage to put forward names at the risk of torpedoing them.
The LF expressed a similar position. It refused to comment on Khoury’s candidacy or any other option as long as Amal and Hezbollah have not officially stated their willingness to consider a third option or give up on Frangieh’s candidacy.
“The battle is not about names; there are several in the running. The confrontation is about the Shiite duo’s obstinacy in maintaining Sleiman Frangieh’s candidacy, which we categorically reject. Hezbollah does not want to give up on the Marada leader, because it does not want to accept defeat at this level unless there is a bazaar in sight or a package deal that it can justify to its [popular] base,” said Jabbour.
The Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) said it is in favor of a consensus president, considering that a resolution to the crisis is more important than the candidate per se. However, the PSP’s current leader, Teymour Joumblatt, refuses to support Frangieh.
“We are in favor of a dialogue to break the deadlock. Georges Khoury’s name is not new on the scene,” a source close to the PSP told L’Orient-Le Jour. The source stressed that there is nothing serious about bringing his name up again.
As for the National Moderation bloc’s members, they say they prefer not to drown themselves in the game of names. Their initiative is limited to finding an appropriate mechanism to put dialogue between the different parties on track.
This article was originally published in L'Orient-Le Jour. Translated by Joelle El Khoury.