Soueid: March 14 will adopt a new slogan in response to Hezbollah’s
March 14 General Coordinator former MP Fares Soueid said that March 14 will adopt the slogan of “the security of Lebanese society is above all other considerations” in reply to Hezbollah’s slogan, “the security of the Resistance is above all other considerations.”
“The tension between the legitimate state and the wilayat al-faqih’s [Guardianship of the Jurist’s] state-within-a-state will end the same way as the conflict between the Lebanese state and Yasser Arafat, and the conflict between Bachir Gemayel and President Elias Sarkis,” Soueid told the Kuwaiti daily As-Seyassah. “Unfortunately, it will end with violence.”
Soueid said that Hezbollah wants to delay the formation of the government by commissioning its Christian partner, Michel Aoun, to create complications, and together they hope to substitute the Doha Agreement with an interim government whose task is to manage the 2009 legislative elections, “thus postponing the discussion of their weapons until after the elections.”
“March 14 will reply to Hezbollah’s maneuvers by holding to commissioned PM Fouad Siniora, who is not bound by any constitutional deadline to form the government,” Soueid said.
Soueid also accused Aoun of trying to intimidate President Michel Sleiman by portraying himself as the administrative governor of Lebanon and denying Sleiman his Christian representation.
Soueid said he expects the president to have problems with some Christian leaders, including Michel Aoun.
“March 14’s reply to Aoun will be through the legislative elections, which will bring him back to his normal size.”
Soueid said he wonders whether Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad will allow the government to be established in Lebanon before his visit to Paris on July 14, adding that “It is a shame that one Lebanese faction can negotiate with Israel, while the establishment of the government is being obstructed,” he said, a reference to Hezbollah’s prisoner swap deal with the Jewish State.
He also noted that the March 14 coalition has launched three workshops after the Biel Declaration; one on the Taif Agreement, one on Lebanese-Syrian relations, and one on Lebanese-Iranian relations, “since the latter has become problematic in Lebanon and the Arab world.”