Harb Warns: Usurping Presidential Powers to Partition Lebanon and Naturalize Palestinians

MP Butros Harb cautioned against a scheme to strip the presidency of its powers and partition Lebanon in order to naturalize Palestinian refugees.

 

Harb, in an interview with Naharnet, said the “issue is not that of amending the constitution or who is president. This is a mere phase in a scheme to partition Lebanon in order to enforce the naturalization of Palestinians in the future.”

“This (target) can only be achieved through striking at Lebanon”s unity, which is now at stake and in great danger,” he added.

 

Harb, who was one of the two presidential candidates originally nominated by March 14, stressed: “proposals forwarded within the framework of the presidential election reflect a political decision to ban the re-creation of the authority in Lebanon, starting with the Presidential office and all the way to the government.”

He recalled that the Hizbullah-led opposition, through its ally Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun, is proposing cutting down the presidential term to 18 months, which is a major breach of the constitution that sets the term at six years.

 

Such a proposal, Harb noted, also contradicts with the status that Lebanon”s Christians have in the state hierarchy, the focal point of strength in it, is that the Christian president”s term of six years is longer than Parliament”s term of four years.

 

“If we cut down the presidential term, we change the president into the weakest of all officials,” Harb noted.

If this atmosphere persists … it would lead to a confrontation and it would hurt Lebanon”s unity. Then the naturalization of Palestinians would be put into effect at the expense of all the Lebanese,” he added.

He urged the majority “to take these risks into consideration and share them with the public opinion, so that the public opinion would be able to take the appropriate decision regarding its leaders.”

The career politician said the French initiative has backfired and led to renewing Syria”s interference in Lebanon”s affairs.

 

“I believe that the French intervention in Lebanon has backfired. It has officially ushered the Syrian role, anew, as a basic factor in Lebanon”s decisions … The French and the Syrians negotiated over the president of Lebanon,” Harb said.

“In my opinion, the French diplomacy was managed in a way that has … resulted in countering its aims,” he concluded.

 

Harb clarified that “this does not mean that Syria is the only force that has blocked the presidential election. What I am trying to say is that it has lead to an atmosphere by which Syria has demands and a viewpoint regarding the management of politics in Lebanon.”

 

In answering a question on his stand regarding an offer by Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem on agreeing on a “basket” of conditions prior to electing a president, Harb said: “We don”t know the content of this basket. It is a veiled text.”

 

He criticized a decision by the opposition to name Aoun negotiator on behalf of the Syrian-backed alliance.

The move, according to Harb, “reflects a message saying if you could not reach an understanding with (Parliament Speaker) Nabih Berri, despite his diplomatic and flexible character, now you will have to deal with non-diplomatic non-flexible Aoun.”

He warned that the presidential crisis would be “further complicated” if a head of state was not elected before end of this year.

 

By next year, the opposition would have two options: “either to accept amending the constitution … or to apply what appears to be a tacit decision to look for someone else than Gen. Michel Suleiman whose election does not require a constitutional amendment. Then parliament meets and elects a president who was forced in and pressured into” office.

 

The opposition, Harb said, “should re-consider its stand and re-assess the coming era. And I do not think that the majority, after making this major step, would retreat any further because that would lead them (opposition) to ask for a third step and a fourth until the majority is stripped of all its immunity.”

 

He stressed that “we are in a democratic system and we do not aim at resorting to force … we can only confront democratically and passively … and we will not compromise on the principles.”

Harb said Hizbullah”s commitment to Aoun “should not lead to suicide or collapse of the country.”