Al-Rahi Considers Remarks on Vacuum in Presidency Post Insult Nation
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi stressed on Tuesday that remarks concerning a possible presidential vacuum is an insult to the country and the post.
He pointed out in statements to visitors, who arrived at Bkirki to congratulate him on the occasion of Christmas, that “the country cannot tolerate actions and reactions.”
Al-Rahi wondered why “lawmakers swiftly elect a speaker and a new Prime Minister is swiftly named after the resignation of the cabinet but talks are ongoing over a possible vacuum at presidency post.”
“MPs should attend a parliamentary session set to elect a new President,” he told his visitors.
Al-Rahi stressed that lawmakers “should assume their responsibilities.”
Al-Rahi held talks with Hizbullah politburo member Ghaleb Abu Zainab and Finance Minister Mohammed al-Safadi.
The Patriarch reiterated on Wednesday in his Christmas sermon calls on officials to bridge the gap and exert efforts to form a new cabinet capable of overseeing the upcoming Presidential elections.
Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam was appointed in April but has so far been unable to put together a government over the conditions and counter conditions set by the rivals parties as fears mount that the differences between the March 8 and 14 camps would lead to a vacuum the presidential post.
President Michel Suleiman's six-year tenure ends in May 2014.
26 December 2013, 14:22
01
My dear Patriarch, the simple reason why they swiftly elected a speaker of the house(by the way he is been in that post for over 25 years)and a prime minister, because our neighb ouring countries paid them off in advance. in this situation there has been no payment or a promise of payments as of yet. So I would challenge the cleargy in Lebanon to stand up and accuse every single politician of selling the country for 30 pieces of silver...
26 December 2013, 16:30
12
The reasons that the Presidency can go to vacuum without much concern are two fold:
1) The position is largely ceremonial. The President is more of a symbol of the nation than a political leader or essential ingredient in the operation of the government;
2) The Presidency is the confessional seat of the Lebanese Christians. The Christians have fractured themselves, made themselves powerless and irrelevant. Unless the other confessional parties want a president, the Christian presidency goes vacant. Vacancy in the office is not the illness, it is the symptom of the illness of the Christian political leadership in Lebanon.
26 December 2013, 17:07
13
Bravo Beiruti
Well said. Christians have reduced themselves to powerless and irrelevant, due to their stupid bickering. God help them and help Lebanon
26 December 2013, 16:32
22
The Lebanese Christians have a special role in holding the country together, Sunni, Shia, Druze and Christian. But if the Christians are busy using their hands to point fingers, or stuff their pockets taking care of family before country, then their hands cannot be used to hold the county together.
One cannot serve his self interest and the nation. You cannot have two masters. Christian political leadership have dropped the country as they busy their hands with other matters and Hezbollah is there to catch the country and have so taken it.
26 December 2013, 19:07
02
@M11, no one is talking about ending diversity in the Christian political community. We would not be a Christian political community without diversity of opinion.
However, there are some things that are existential. We must first exist before we can be diverse. The Jews in Israel are very diverse politically, ethnically and even in how they practice Judaism. So there is more diversity among the Jews of Israel than among the Christians of Lebanon. But when it comes to Israel they are all of one voice and mind.
26 December 2013, 19:11
12
Christians will prove they are Christians when they accept the number of seats in Parliament they win on their merits, without having half the seats assigned to them as per the revised National Pact, known as the Taef Accord.
I join Patriarch al Rahi in deploring this "actions and reactions". I think we should all do absolutely nothing, and shoot anybody who does anything. But we have to shoot them in a way that does not do anything. Maybe we can get the French to shoot them, or a member of the Saudi royal family may know someone who could shoot them for us.
26 December 2013, 19:48
03
The 64 seats allocated to the Christians in Parliament is an illusion. Less the 1/2 of the people cannot elect half of the Members of Parliament and render Parliament as a credible democratic institution. The question is whether or not to continue the fiction of Taef, or accept reality and take 50 seats, reflective of 40% of the population being Christian. 14 seats now are held by Christian Deputies elected by non-Christian voters. But is that a bad thing? In Lebanon's Confessional System, each sect votes for deputies from other sects, its the thin thread that holds the public life of the country together.
26 December 2013, 19:11
01
The division in the Christian community of whether to be in coalition with the Sunni parties or the Shia parties, has taken a confessional demographic minority in the population, the Lebanese Christians, and made them irrelevant. The portion that is with M14 is not enough to allow that coalition to govern and the portion that is with M8, likewise is not enough to allow that coalition to govern and so one cancels out the other and by so doing cancels out the State and democratic Institutions.
26 December 2013, 19:13
01
This leaves the Sunni Parties or the Shia Parties to control the state and since Hezbollah is armed, it controls to the detriment of Sunni, Druze and Christian, even the Christian parties aligned with Hezbollah, except for the Aoun family clique that is realizing an increase in wealth over the MOU arrangement. The FPM, read the Aoun Family, is becoming wealthy with this arrangement, so much so, that it will not let go for the interests of serving the interests of the State.
26 December 2013, 19:14
01
Hezbollah does not mind allow this to Aoun as it keeps him in the tent, which keeps the Christians divided,which keeps the State Institutions paralyzed and lapsed and this leaves Hezbollah with no effective domestic opposition to its agenda in Lebanon.
