FPM Official Warns of 'Resounding' Protest over Presidential Choice of Christians
A Free Patriotic Movement official has warned that the FPM was mulling to resign from the government or boycott all-party talks over the rejection of certain parties to grant Lebanon's Christians their rights but instead decided to resort to street protests.
A statement issued by the Change and Reform bloc that is led by the founder of the FPM, MP Michel Michel Aoun, on Tuesday was “a clear warning that the movement's leadership will not tolerate the continued attempts to ignore the constitutional rights of Christians,” said the official.
Among the measures that the FPM leadership was mulling to take were the resignation from the cabinet and the boycott of national dialogue sessions. But it dropped such choices and instead resorted to planning street protests, the source told As Safir daily in remarks published on Wednesday.
The FPM official said that the timing and shape of demonstrations depend on the circumstances.
But he warned that the FPM supporters will have a “resounding protest” if the choice of the majority of Christians on the presidency continued to be ignored.
The movement held several protests last year to press for the same demands.
The Change and Reform bloc on Tuesday called on its supporters to await a signal from Aoun to stage popular protests.
“The presidential battle is not a battle of quorum but rather a battle related par excellence to the National Pact,” said the bloc in a statement issued after its weekly meeting in Rabieh.
The 1943 National Pact is an unwritten agreement that set the foundations of modern Lebanon as a state based on a sectarian distribution of power.
Aoun, a presidential candidate, has in recent years accused rival parties of marginalizing Christians in state institutions and has said that the majority of Christians back him for the country's top post.
The members of his bloc and their allies from Hizbullah are boycotting parliamentary sessions aimed at electing a president over lack of consensus on Aoun, causing a lack of quorum.
Baabda Palace has been vacant since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014.
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