Kouchner meets with rival leaders in bid to spur deal on election
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner held talks with Lebanon”s feuding political leaders on Wednesday in a bid to encourage them to end a dangerous presidential void.
As Kouchner met with local leaders, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he wants a quick end to the stalemate that is preventing the election of a new president in Lebanon, his press office said in a statement Wednesday.
“The secretary general is extremely concerned about the continuing delay in the election of a new president in Lebanon, which has extended well past the constitutional timeframe,” the statement said. “He believes it is now time for this matter to be resolved without further delay.”
Even though both political camps have agreed to endorse the candidacy of General Michel Suleiman, commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, they have yet to agree on how to amend the Constitution – which bars a senior public servant from running – and on the seats allocated for the opposition and the ruling majority in his Cabinet.
Kouchner stopped short of saying that the election is facing obstacles after a three-hour meeting with Speaker Nabih Berri and Parliament majority leader Saad Hariri. “I”m not saying there were obstacles and I”m not saying there was success,” he told reporters, adding that more meetings are scheduled for the coming days.
Kouchner also held meetings with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir and Suleiman.
His remarks contradicted those of Berri and Siniora, speaking separately but asserting with equal certainty that the crisis was over.
“I am confident we are on the verge and at the beginning of a solution,” Siniora told reporters on Wednesday.
Siniora also indirectly criticized the Hizbullah-led opposition and accused it of delaying a presidential election by setting new conditions.
“We should work and push toward carrying out the presidential election as soon as possible and not shackle the [presidential vote] with obstacles and conditions,” Siniora added.
In remarks published in the daily An-Nahar on Wednesday, Berri said that Lebanon”s army chief will be elected its next president soon. “The story is over. General Michel Suleiman has become president of the republic,” Berri told An-Nahar newspaper. The speaker added that calls supporting the candidacy of Suleiman have poured in from “the whole world.”
Suleiman, 59, had been the consensus candidate favored by the opposition. He has good ties with Hizbullah and was appointed army chief in 1998 when Syria controlled Lebanon.
The presidency is the latest stage in a power struggle between the anti-Syrian governing coalition and the opposition led by the pro-Damascus Hizbullah. Suleiman emerged in the last week as a candidate acceptable to both sides.
Agreement on a president would defuse a political crisis that has paralyzed the country for more than a year and sparked its worst internal strife since the 1975-1990 Civil War.
Berri said Friday”s session was still on schedule. “The process of amendment, the election of the president and the start of consultations [on the formation of a new government] do not require more than two hours,” he said.
One of the new president”s first tasks will be to assign a new prime minister to form the new cabinet, which is now a subject of dispute.
Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun, leader of the Reform and Change bloc, is demanding guarantees that his share of seats in the new Cabinet will reflect the size of his parliamentary bloc – the biggest of any Christian faction.
Also Wednesday, An-Nahar carried a report by the Central News Agency quoting Hizbullah”s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, as having said that no party can ask for these sorts of guarantees from Suleiman.
According to the report, Nasrallah said that Cabinet seats will be decided during consultations between parliamentary blocs and the new prime minister and government posts will be discussed between the prime minister and his Cabinet.
“We can”t ask General Suleiman for guarantees or conditions or requests that are the specialty of Cabinet. What the general could offer is a promise to apply law and to reactivate public institutions,” An-Nahar quoted the sayyed as saying.
Hizbullah denied that Nasrallah had said any such thing, and its Al-Manar television station also denied another claim by An-Nahar that the leader of the resistance had recently met with Suleiman.
On Monday, Aoun insisted that rival sides should first reach a “political understanding” on a future government before setting the stage for Suleiman”s election. The ruling coalition has seen this as unnecessary stalling.
“These demands could be aimed at preserving the presidential vacuum,” Hariri was quoted as saying on Wednesday.
Lebanese Forces boss Samir Geagea also objected to placing conditions on Suleiman. “Once March 14 agreed on Suleiman”s candidacy, the opposition started imposing conditions,” Geagea told reporters.
“History will point at those who are responsible for obstructions,” he added.