The leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, Gebran Bassil, during the presentation of party membership cards to young recruits. (Credit: NNA)
The leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Gebran Bassil, said on Sunday that his party is ready to return to the principles of the 2006 Mar Mikhail agreement with Hezbollah, if the latter agrees "to return to partnership" with the FPM. Bassil's comments were made during a partisan meeting with cadres and young people from the FPM.
"Let no one think that we regret [the alliance with Hezbollah]. Whenever Hezbollah decides to return to the Mar Mikhaïl agreement, we will return too. This agreement has given us 15 years of stability in the country … We have lost popularity because promoting Hezbollah in Lebanon is difficult, especially among young people. Despite this, we sacrificed our popularity for stability. But we walked away when Hezbollah stopped following the partnership," Bassil explained.
The alliance between the two parties, initially sealed in 2006 with the so-called Mar Mikhail agreement, has come under considerable strain in recent months. The tug-of-war began after Hezbollah backed Marada Movement leader Sleiman Frangieh's candidacy in the presidential election. Moreover, since Hezbollah openly entered into armed conflict with Israel in southern Lebanon on Oct. 8, 2023, Bassil has once again raised his voice against his former ally, criticizing, among other things, Hezbollah's policy of "unity of fronts" in the resistance against the Jewish state.
It was in the name of this unity and of "support" for Gaza, that the pro-Iranian party opened the front in southern Lebanon. Faced with the upheavals in its alliance with the FPM, a Hezbollah delegation visited former president and FPM leader Michel Aoun's home at the beginning of March to try to repair the relationship.
Bassil said on Friday that his party "has not broken off the agreement with Hezbollah" but that the alliance between the two parties "needs to be improved, which has not yet happened." According to him, it was Hezbollah that "left the agreement when it abandoned the principle of state-building, the partnership with the FPM, and broke the ceiling of protecting Lebanon."
More than 200 Hezbollah party fighters have been killed, along with 50 civilians, since the fighting with the Israeli army began.