France's ambassador to Beirut, Hervé Magro, speaks with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain al-Tineh, Sept. 17, 2024. (Credit: The press office of the legislative leader)
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said he’s had enough. Three weeks after announcing his amended initiative to break the presidential deadlock, Berri does not intend to take further steps backward.
In a speech in late August, on the occasion commemorating the disappearance of the Amal movement founder Imam Moussa Sadr, he said he was prepared to convene a single electoral session with successive rounds of voting until a president is elected, provided that he will sponsor a few days long dialogue before the election, rather than for a week, as he had previously suggested.
“This is the maximum I can propose,” the local NBN TV channel, close to the parliament speaker, reported him as saying on Monday. Thus, he has strongly insisted on his stance in the face of the opposition’s protagonists who continue to reject any dialogue under Berri’s leadership.
Above all, Berri has complicated the task of the five countries committee involved in the Lebanese dossier (US, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar), who is pressing for a rapid resolution of the presidential election.
This mission seems increasingly difficult, unless the French president’s special envoy to Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian — who is expected in Beirut on Sept. 23, according to L’Orient-Le Jour’s information — manages to achieve a breakthrough.
“Lebanon needs a president now more than ever,” French ambassador to Beirut Hervé Magro told the local MTV channel on Tuesday.
Berri believes he did his part. “Each of the components of the Quintet committee accepted our initiative. What is stopping it from being backed collectively?” he said. These remarks carry messages in several directions.
Firstly, it is an invitation for the Quintet to officially support his call for dialogue before the elections, whereas in their May 16 statement, the group of five had cautiously expressed their support for informal “consultations.”
Contacts between Le Drian and Hochstein
Contrary to what he had anticipated, his call did not seem to resonate in diplomatic circles. “It’s not up to the Group of Five to decide what mechanism to adopt. The Quintet’s mission is to help the Lebanese agree on a future president,” a diplomat who declined to be named told L’Orient-Le Jour.
The diplomat added that Le Drian will not propose a new initiative to break the deadlock. “He will continue his contacts to help the Lebanese parties hold the election,” the diplomat said.
This point was supposed to be on the agenda of the meeting Berri had with Magro in Ain al-Tineh on Tuesday. It was an opportunity for the latter to take stock of the meeting the five countries’ ambassadors to Beirut held on Saturday at the Residences des Pins [the French ambassador’s official residence] to prepare for the next stage.
“It’s time for the various Lebanese parties to realize how serious the country’s situation is., particularly since the risk of an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel has always been serious and is becoming more frequent today,” recalled the diplomat.
He added that a contact by phone took place ahead of Saturday’s meeting between Le Drian and the White House’s special envoy to Lebanon and Israel, Amos Hochstein.
“This is a way of underlining the coordination between Washington and Paris, and, indirectly, the rest of the Quintet committee’s members, both with regard to the presidential election and the war that has been going on since Oct. 8,” the diplomat said.
Bukhari on a tour
Saudi ambassador to Beirut Waleed Bukhari held talks with Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai on Monday in Dimane. Rai is also pushing to end the presidential vacuum, almost two years after the end of Michel Aoun’s term of office (October 2022). On Tuesday, Bukhari visited the Lebanese Forces (LF) Leader Samir Geagea, a local ally of Riyadh, in Maarab.
Secondly, in his remarks on Monday, Berri indirectly called on the Group of Five to convince the opposition protagonists, starting with the LF, to respond favorably to his call for dialogue before the presidential election. Nevertheless, Geagea himself said at the end of the meeting, “If Bukhari had a proposed solution, I don’t think that’s the case anymore,” (after Israel blew up Hezbollah’s pagers, killing at least eight and wounding thousands.)
In any case, the LF position remains unchanged. “Nabih Berri cannot lead public opinion to believe that he is making a concession by declaring himself in favor of an open electoral session with successive rounds of voting. He is only doing his most basic duty, which is that of respecting the constitutional mechanism,” said LF spokesman Charles Jabbour. Jabbour called on the Quintet committee to “play a role in this,” without providing further details.
The Quintet’s position remains unchanged: In parallel with the international community’s efforts, any local initiative that can speed up the election is backed. Relying on this support, several “independent” MPs met on Tuesday at the Deputy Parliament Speaker Elias Bou Saab’s office, “in a bid to bring about a breakthrough in the presidential elections,” said Bou Saab’s press office in a statement.
In addition to Bou Saab, MP Alain Aoun, dismissed from the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) in early August, and his colleagues MP Simon Abi Ramia and MP Ibrahim Kanaan, who quit the FPM, attended the meeting. Change MPs Elias Jaradeh and Melhem Khalaf, as well as MPs Neemat Frem, Jamil Abboud, Michel Daher and Adib Abdelmassih were also present.
This article was originally published in L'Orient-Le Jour and translated by Joelle El Khoury.