Frangieh is far from securing both needed votes and quorum

News Bulletin Reports
04-03-2023 | 12:43
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Frangieh is far from securing both needed votes and quorum
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Frangieh is far from securing both needed votes and quorum

It wasn't surprising to anyone that Speaker of the Parliament Nabih Berri announced Thursday to al-Akhbar newspaper that the candidate of the Amal-Hezbollah duo is the head of the Marada Movement, Sleiman Frangieh.

However, the surprise was in his saying that "the white ballots named him [Frangieh] without his name being written, in the first election session on September 29.” This implies that Frangieh could secure the 65 votes required. 

Let’s assume that 86 deputies out of the 128 are willing to secure the required quorum; how could Frangieh, based on the results of the first presidential elections session, obtain 63 votes which were placed for the white ballots back then?

It is important to note that the 17 MPs of the Free Patriotic Movement who voted with blank ballots in the first session will refuse to vote for Frangieh.  
The three representatives of Sidon and Jezzine, who prefer to remain on the side of the independents and the Change MPs, told LBCI that they prefer to stay out of the alignments. Thus the total number drops to only 43.  

While each of the two representatives, Faisal Karami and Haider Nasser, who entered parliament after the appeals, will give their votes to Frangieh in addition to Karim Kabbara. Thus Frangieh would obtain 46 votes, far from the 65 needed.

The main bet of Speaker Berri is to get support for Frangieh from the National Moderation bloc with its six deputies and the Democratic Gathering bloc with its eight deputies. In such a scenario, Frangieh succeeds in obtaining 60 votes.   

However, as long as there is a Saudi rejection of Frangieh's name, as expressed by the head of the Lebanese Forces Party, Samir Geagea, to al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, this means that this equation is invalid because these two blocs will not contradict the Saudi stance.  

So if the Free Patriotic Movement does not change its position, there is no way for Frangieh to approach the 65 votes needed if the two-thirds quorum of 86 deputies is secured, which is almost impossible.
 

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