The following are summaries of today's major stories published in the Arabic press. LBCI does not edit press digest articles for content, giving English-language readers insight into the various views expressed in newspapers across the Arab world.
Speaker Nabih Berri told
an-Nahar daily that he is deploying efforts, in coordination with MP Walid Jumblatt, in a bid to find a solution for the presidential vacuum, rejecting any discussion concerning the extension of the Parliament’s mandate.
“Why propose an extension while we still have time to elect a new president?” he asked, adding that the Parliament’s term expires on the 20th of November, which gives the deputies enough time to elect a president, once agreement is reached.
The newspaper pointed out that Berri told his visitors that the presidential elections must remain a priority, stressing the need to hold the parliamentary elections as scheduled.
MP Marwan Hamadeh told
al-Joumhouria newspaper that head of the Change and Reform bloc MP Michel Aoun has been seeking means to get elected as president, noting that the latest proposal presented by his bloc, concerning the amendment of the constitution to allow the people to elect a president, “is nothing but a deadly game for Lebanon.”
For his part, Public Works and Transportation Minister Ghazi Zaayter told the daily that he has not yet studied Aoun’s proposal, stressing however, that any amendment of the constitution requires both national and political consensus.
Also among the reactions triggered by the said proposal,
an-Nahar newspaper reported that March 14 forces completely rejected the suggestion, adding that the Kataeb party refused to consider it as “a serious manner to consider.”
However, a source from the Lebanese Forces said that “the party does not mind the election of the president by the people,” stressing the need to put an end to the domination of Hezbollah’s arms over Lebanon, to allow the people to freely express their opinions.
The same sources pointed out that the timing of Aoun’s proposal is ambiguous and raises several question, stating that “his request to amend the constitution at this time, is like requesting to change the educational curricula right before the examination.”
Member of the Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan said that the proposal presented by MP Michel Aoun and signed by 10 of his bloc’s deputies, is not an attempt to affect the Taef Agreement.
In a statement to
an-Nahar daily, Kanaan said that the project concerns article 49 of the Lebanese Constitution, mainly the second paragraph, which includes the mechanism of the election of a president.
In this regard, the MP said that the proposed amendment consists of dividing the presidential elections into two rounds; during the first, only the Christians cast their ballots, adding that the two candidates who receive the majority of the votes will be transferred to the second round where all the Lebanese voters will then proceed to elect the president.
On another note, Kanaan said that article 49 had been amended three times in the past, once to renew a president’s mandate and another time to allow the election of a president who serves as a Grade One civil servant without imposing his resignation.
“This article is technical and concerns the elections’ mechanism; it neither concerns nor affects the prerogatives of the president and the Taef Accord,” he stated.
Interior and Municipalities Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq categorically denied reports stating that a regional mediation will tackle the file of the missing soldiers, who are presumably kidnapped after the clashes that took place in the northeastern town of Arsal.
In a statement to
al-Mustaqbal daily, the minister said that the Lebanese state and government are carrying out their duties with the utmost secrecy and confidentiality, reiterating that there are neither Turkish nor Qatari interventions in the negotiations.