Carter fleshes out offer to monitor Lebanese elections
Former US President Jimmy Carter detailed a proposal to send a monitoring mission to oversee next year”s parliamentary elections during a meeting with Interior Minister Ziad Baroud on Thursday. If accepted, a team would be dispatched from the Carter Center in Atlanta to monitor next year”s vote, which is expected to be extremely close.
Baroud welcomed Carter”s suggestion but emphasized that he would need Cabinet approval to formally accept the plan.
Next year”s elections are due to be held between April and June, but no date has been fixed by the Interior Ministry as yet. Analysts are predicting a tight race between the anti-Syrian March 14 Forces and the Hizbullah-led March 8 coalition.
Baroud said he would be pleased to have Carter”s monitoring team in the country when the vote was held.
"We have nothing to hide," he said. "On the contrary we are working in a very transparent way. We want these elections to be held in the best form."
Carter said that if the mission was approved, he would look forward to it "great anticipation" to its deployment.
It is unlikely that everyone in Lebanon will feel the same way. Hizbullah, which is labeled a "terrorist" group by Washington, turned down a meeting with Carter on the basis that it don”t meet with members of any US administration. Some of Hizbullah”s allies, however, have met with the former president.
Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun and members of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri”s parliamentary bloc both spent time on Thursday with Carter, who has said he wants to meet all political leaders in Lebanon during his trip.
Carter also visited the grave of late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, where he laid a wreath while accompanied by the slain leader”s son, parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri.
The former president also met Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel, and Lebanese Forces boss Samir Geagea.
Carter began a five-day trip to Lebanon on Tuesday. he has already met with President Michel Suleiman and will speak at AUB tomorrow, before heading to Syria on Saturday, where he will meet President Bashar Assad and the exiled leadership of Palestinian group Hamas.
Earlier this year Carter met with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus, sparking controversy and condemnation from those who consider the group a terrorist organization.
But a senior Hamas official in Damascus told the Associated Press that Carter wanted to meet with officials from the group to discuss the case of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who has been held prisoner by the group for more than two years.
Carter”s last meeting with Hamas facilitated the delivery of a handwritten letter from Shalit to his parents.
The former president is also said to be keen to discuss the prospects of a truce between Hamas and Israel with members of the Palestinian group.
Carter forged the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt and has dedicated his time since leaving office to promoting peace and human rights around the world. He has also authored several books, including "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."