Beirut: As Lebanese parliamentarians prepared for the second extension of their term in office, the Maronite Patriarch, Mar Bisharah Butros Al Ra‘i lambasted deputies for failing their constitutional duties to elect a head of state and, in a moment of hubris, threatened to “spill the beans”.

Not a stranger to frank conversations whenever he is out of the country, the cardinal delivered sharp remarks during his current trip in Australia, even if it appeared that he was essentially preaching to the converted.

Still, Lebanese television networks carried particularly virulent accusations levelled by the cleric against the entire political class, when he declared that Lebanese politicians were literally “sold”. “Six billion dollars, that’s the price of political positions in Lebanon,” he said, and clarified that if such sums were paid to militias in the past to fight during the civil war, similar sums were now allocated to politicians to continue a soft civil war.

“We all know the deal,” Ra‘i said, adding: “The country is on the brink because it was sold, and he who sells himself does not hesitate to sell his people and his country. This is our political drama today. This is our bitter reality.”

While this harsh assessment was delivered in Adelaide on Thursday, the Cardinal did not mince his words at a Sydney gathering a day later, when he faulted some political parties that allegedly wished to change the country’s power-sharing governance formula between Muslims and Christians. He expressed his strong opposition to any alterations of the Taif Accords, which introduced parity after 15 years of bloody confrontations, in favour of a new Thulathiyyah (Trisection) Accord between Christians, Sunnis and Shiites. “A dangerous thing is happening now,” claimed the head of the Maronite Church, “which I did not believe could happen, which is that they [certain parliamentarians] want a conference to reconsider Lebanon as an entity and they want a tripartite power-sharing formula”.

Although Hezbollah strongly denied that it wished to introduce a new constitutional set-up, few doubted that the quest for a fresh power-sharing formula was far from its leaders’ minds, aware that the country’s changing demographic realities created unprecedented opportunities for Shiites.

“I say that we will not accept a tripartite power-sharing formula or any conference [to reconsider the Lebanese political system],” Cardinal Ra‘i emphasised, as he called on political factions to end their bickering and elect a president.

In a comical moment, he delved in a comparison between the Lebanese and Australian parliaments, where opposition and loyalist parties legislated together, unaware that Australians upheld the law.

Lebanon plunged into a presidential vacuum on May 25, 2014 when Michel Suleiman ended his term in office, and while quorum was established during a single session on April 23, when no candidate won two-thirds of the votes to prevail, 14 additional gatherings failed to gather the required deputies to elect a successor.

Most March 8 lawmakers boycotted each and every one of the 14 sessions, insisting that they would only take part if and only if the winning candidate was agreed upon ahead of time.

Ra‘i did not opine on this unique deal-making phenomenon though he regretted that political groups displayed undeniable “affiliations with external powers”. To his credit, he highlighted the need to respect both the Constitution — as amended at the 1989 Taif Conference — as well as the 1943 National Pact — still the vital unwritten arrangement that laid the foundation of Lebanon as a multi-confessional state — because a vast majority of citizens supported them.