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Democratic Gathering bloc calls for 'confronting' attempts to disrupt presidential elections

20-05-2014 | 11:51

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Democratic Gathering bloc calls for 'confronting' attempts to disrupt presidential elections

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Presidential candidate MP Henry Helou said on Tuesday he has agreed to run for the presidential elections in order to bridge the gap among the Lebanese people.

"We will attend the upcoming election session to be held on Thursday," he said following a Democratic Gathering meeting.

MP Helou also called for respecting constitutional principles while confronting attempts to disrupt the presidential elections.

Accordingly, he stressed the need to hold dialogue as a mean to avert power vacuum.

MP Helou yielded 16 votes during the first round of elections, while rival candidate Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea received 48.

Lebanese lawmakers failed for a fourth time to choose a new head of state last Thursday and will try again, only three days before President Michel Sleiman's term ends.

If the next round on May 22 fails, it will create a power vacuum in a country that desperately needs leadership to deal with a spillover of violence from neighboring Syria, more than a million refugees from the civil war there, and a budget deficit close to 10 percent of the size of its economy.

Politicians say they expect disagreements over Sleiman's replacement to drag on for months after he leaves office.

Any candidate would have to get support from the two main political blocs - Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah's March 8 alliance and the rival Sunni-led March 14 coalition - to win the necessary majority from parliament's 128 deputies.

But the two alliances support different sides in neighboring Syria, where Sunni rebels are fighting to overthrow Hezbollah ally President Bashar al-Assad, entrenching divisions in Lebanon.

Thursday's vote was called off after March 8 deputies boycotted the session, leaving it without the two-thirds quorum needed for the vote to go ahead.

LBCI/REUTERS

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