Bassil, Frangieh meet amid tension

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Asharq Al-Awsat learned that Head of Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) MP Gebran Bassil and Head of Marada Movement Sleiman Frangieh held a recent meeting with a mutual friend.

This article was originally published in, translated from the Arab outlet of Asharq Al-Awsat.

Thus, the meeting between Frangieh and Bassil is the first since Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah brought them together at Iftar last Ramadan, before the parliamentary elections and the presidential election, which began with the end of President Michel Aoun's term at the end of last November. Parliament has so far held ten sessions, all of which failed to elect a new one.

Frangieh is considered one of the most prominent presidential candidates and has the backing of the Hezbollah Amal duo. Still, he is facing Bassil's opposition.

Also remarkable is Bassil's openness to the Head of Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, which did not cause - as a prominent political source told Asharq Al-Awsat - anxiety among Hezbollah's leadership, which is well aware that the rapprochement between FPM and PSP limits, in the end, remains limited to breaking the ice and ending the rift between them. It will not develop towards opening a new page of cooperation.

In this regard, the same source revealed that Bassil decided to broaden the scope of his contacts with unending openness to his opponents immediately after Hezbollah's communication with him was cut off.

However, Bassil's ties to the party have worsened. The only option to return the situation to normal is by communicating with his ally and ending his attack on Frangieh.

According to the source, Bassil did not think twice about accepting a mutual friend's invitation to meet for lunch with Mikati and then to meet Frangieh. The source claimed that the person who took the initiative to set up the environment for these two meetings was a friend of a businessman who had previously sponsored such meetings.

Asharq Al-Awsat also learned that Bassil met Mikati on December 15, that is, on the eve of the ministerial consultative meeting that he hosted the next day at the Grand Serail, in which several ministers affiliated with former President Aoun and his political team participated.