It has become recognized by most parties of the opposition forces, the Shiite duo and their allies, that Wednesday's session will not produce a president because none of the candidates, Sleiman Frangieh and Jihad Azour, will obtain the necessary votes that qualify them to win, which means a return to the beginning.
This article was originally published in and translated from the Lebanese newspaper al-Liwaa.
This prompts the start of the search for other solutions to end the "catastrophic" alignments that stopped the country's path politically, economically, and socially, waiting for the new initiatives that are supposed to be carried out by the countries concerned with the Lebanese situation, especially France, after the assignment of the former French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to the Lebanese file, except for some internal initiatives that are evaluated by more than one party to reach agreement on a third name outside of alignments.
Political sources told al-Liwaa that what will come after Le Drian's assignment will be different than before. This is because France shuffled the cards and started looking for new approaches and solutions that he is supposed to carry this week.
Most likely, after the Parliament's electoral session next Wednesday, and after the picture of the electoral scene, that would become apparent through the voting papers and what each of Frangieh and Azour can reap to ensure that the two men will not obtain the number of votes required to win or guarantee that the significant parliamentary blocs will "break" the quorum for the session if one of them obtains a sufficient number.
Therefore, the new approaches, internally and externally, will move toward a third, agreed-upon option.
As for what Le Drian holds, this is a matter left to the contacts that France initiated through its foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, in Riyadh on the sidelines of the Arab-international "Defeating ISIS" forum, where she met with the foreign ministers of Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others who have an "opinion" on the Lebanese file and agreed with them on the need to get Lebanon out of the quagmire of the presidential elections to lead the election of a president and the formation of a government that undertakes the required reforms.
Perhaps the travel of Saudi Ambassador Walid al-Bukhari to Riyadh to "consult" with the Saudi leadership after Colonna met with her Saudi counterpart, Faisal bin Farhan, is evidence that something is being "cooked" in the outside to bypass the options of Frangieh and Azour and search for the third option that is acceptable internally.
The sources also stated that France would communicate with Iran to expand coordination with countries interested in the Lebanese situation and its stability, and the range of its contacts will certainly include the American side, which is originally interested in the issues of security of the southern borders and the stability of the governance of the Bank du Liban, which means monetary and therefore economic stability.
However, it is proven that what happened in terms of line-ups in Lebanon between the various parliamentary blocs indicates that Frangieh and Azour are out of the electoral race, but what is important is how the exit will be endorsed after Wednesday's electoral session.
It must be noted that the opposition achieved its goal of weakening Frangieh's candidacy, even if it did not and will not guarantee the victory of its candidate, Azour, especially after it was reported that the head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), MP Gebran Bassil, declared that "his battle is focused on toppling Frangieh, not Azour's victory, and that he communicated this position to Hezbollah and other parties."
That is why he joined the party intersecting with the opposition over Azour's candidacy.
Regardless of what the votes of the independent and Change MPs and some FPM MPs will be during the session, this matter does not change anything in the divisive reality and will not produce a president for the country, nor will it contribute to solving the severe dilemmas that the country suffers from at all levels.
Consequently, new internal and external endeavors must produce new proposals and ideas whose translation may take a long time to achieve presidential elections after a month or two unless a miracle occurs at a time when miracles have ended.
Accordingly, some expect that the summer season will pass with a successful expatriate and tourism momentum, even if the country does not have a president and a "working" government, except that the end of July will witness the end of the term of the Governor of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, without choosing an alternative.
The sources indicate that it has been agreed that the Vice Governor, Wassim Mansouri, would assume the responsibility of the governorship, as stipulated by the law, but in partnership with the Central Council of the Bank, for the decisions would be taken unanimously to prevent exclusivity and sectarian objections that were previously issued.