New York: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah delivered one of his regular television broadcasts on Friday, in which he called for “domestic efforts” to elect a new president, rather than wait for the results of the putative Saudi-Iranian discussions.

He rejected any accusations that the self-styled “Party of God” wanted a new national pact — a tripartite power-sharing formula between Christians, Sunnis and Shiites, or the so-called Thulathiyyah [Trisection] — to replace the 1989 Taif Accords that ended the Lebanese Civil War, and delved into the alleged victories in Syria. It was a sweeping address that, at times, highlighted the speaker’s contempt to the State that Hezbollah publicly upheld though preferred to operate outside of its purview.

“Foreign powers are saying that they won’t intervene” in the presidential elections, declared Nasrallah, adding: “so why are you waiting for them?”

Inasmuch as he called for “serious efforts and multi-party efforts to reach the needed result in the issue of the presidency,” the Secretary-General emphasised the need for renewed “dialogue between Al Mustaqbal [Future Movement] and the Free Patriotic Movement.”

He believed that no one in Beirut “should await the outcome of the Iranian-Saudi negotiations, because until the moment, there is no known date and it is unknown if there will be an imminent date. The topics of the talks are still unknown and no one has said that the presidential vote will be on the table of negotiations,” added Nasrallah.

According to him, Iran seldom imposed “anything on its allies, not in Lebanon, neither in Syria nor in Iraq or any place, because it respects its friends everywhere,” which belied evidence that Tehran did in fact interfere in Arab internal affairs that, without exaggeration, created significant tensions ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Shah across the region.

Nasrallah invited the Lebanese political establishment to “agree to hold the election and accept the figure who is the strongest at the Christian and national levels [meaning General Michel Aoun] and we’re willing to go to parliament, but the party that is preventing the strongest figure from reaching the presidency is well-known,” he clarified.

What surprised many was Nasrallah’s reference to tripartite power-sharing formula, which he denied was a party goal, hammering: “We extremely regret recent remarks accusing our camp, especially the Shiite duo, of seeking tripartite power-sharing, and someone is trying to say that we want a presidential void because we want to reach tripartite power-sharing.”

These accusations were baseless, he contended, and asked those making them to provide evidence. Ironically, he claimed that “years ago, the French were the first party to raise this issue in Tehran,” and when Paris allegedly “told the Iranians that the Ta’if Accords had become outdated and asked them about their opinion regarding tripartite power-sharing, the Iranians … asked [Hezballah leaders] about it and we said that it is totally out of the question.”

Nasrallah dared anyone to produce a single statement by a Shiite scholar that proved Hezbollah sought tripartite power-sharing in Lebanon and, in the affirmative, offered to apologise.

In fact, the idea of holding a constituent assembly — that would presumably discuss a new national pact including the Thulathiyyah — was raised by the Secretary-General himself on several occasions, most recently on June 1, 2012, during a ceremony commemorating the 23rd death anniversary of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. At the time, Nasrallah called for a constituent assembly elected by the people — not on a sectarian or regional basis but on the basis of competency — in order to discuss all options. “Let it discuss the Taif Accords, a new social contract or a non-sectarian system,” he emphasised then, and affirmed in a slew of speeches ever since.

Others, including non-Hezbollah acolytes like former minister Wiam Wahhab and deputy Alain Aoun, have made references to the plank as well. Scores of articles in Al Akhbar and Al Safir, among others, addressed the issue too, writing scathing editorials against the country’s National Pact.

Everyone agreed with Nasrallah that what was required was “a conference that would put Lebanon on the right track,” which assumed that the current Constitution and National Pact were not.

It must be further acknowledged that a Hezbollah demobilization would probably require a recalibration of the power-sharing formula in place although the three-way balance of representation may not be acceptable to Christians and Sunnis.

Taif ushered in a 50/50 parity between Christians and Muslims though it also envisaged the eventual abolition of Confessionalism altogether within the country’s political system.

Because Lebanon’s system of government was build around Confessionalism, any alterations were likely to dramatically change the country’s make-up, conditions that were rejected by a vast majority of citizens from every faith and denomination. That, ultimately, was what confronted Hezbollah.