Beirut Former Prime Minister Sa‘ad Hariri, the leader of the Future Movement and of the March 14 Coalition, proposed a new “roadmap” to protect Lebanon from domestic and regional foes. He castigated Hezbollah, condemning “any group that sends its youth into [Syria or Iraq] … as a terrorist organization,” reminding his audience that he warned everyone that the country was “in the heart of the storm and that all officials and leaders must take national stances,” presumably to preserve what’s left of it.
Speaking during the party’s annual Iftar that was attended by most of the March 14 leadership via satellite link up in Riyadh, Hariri cautioned that Beirut was caught in the whirlwind of the Arab world, witnessing fresh sectarian divisions that threatened to spillover into it, which was why officials were called upon to settle on a plan to uphold the national interest and ensure internal stability. Towards that end, he stressed that parliament’s first duty ought to elect a new president and end the political vacuum at the country’s top post. “This is a national priority,” Hariri hammered, and rejected the proposal made by the Free Patriotic Movement chief, General Michel Aoun, to elect the president via universal suffrage.
“Any attempt to override national consensus and the Ta’if Agreement is a step into the unknown that would further complicate things and cause more divisions and contribute to vacuum,” he clarified, though he quickly repeated earlier declarations that his party did “not have a veto against anyone (for taking office),” as long as a consensus existed within the Christian community on the best candidate.
Hariri’s emphasis on upholding the Ta’if Agreement that settled power-sharing in the aftermath of the 1975-1990 civil war, was bound to upset those who wished to turn the page and organize a new Constitutional Convention to recreate the state based on the Thulathiyyah [Trisection] formula that would divide power into three equal parts, one for Christians, another for Sunnis and a third for Shi‘ahs. “We will not find a substitute for Ta’if no matter how circumstances changed,” the former prime minister pointed out, which was as clear as any message he ever pronounced.
Even if his latest ideas were not new, Hariri repeated his strong criticisms of Hezbollah and insisted that the party must withdraw its militiamen from Syria. Once that was achieved, he added, the Lebanese can set up “a national comprehensive plan to confront terrorism in all its forms,” which “is a national duty that is the responsibility of the state, not of any sect or party.”
Interestingly, Hariri rejected the extension of parliament’s term “because holding parliamentary elections with no president indicates an automatically resigned cabinet and the impossibility of forming a new one,” which stood in direct contradiction of the Speaker’s assertion a few days ago that an extension come November 2014 was the most likely outcome.
