Aoun Meets Ignatius IV: 2013 Vote Last Chance for Change

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun on Sunday warned that the 2013 parliamentary elections would be “the last chance for change, or else a total collapse will happen” in the country.

“We have been calling on the government to implement reforms, but no one is taking the issue seriously and they think that it is an electoral propaganda,” Aoun added, during a rally in the Koura District town of Kfar Hazir, following closed-door talks in Balamand with Ignatius IV Hazim, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East.

Aoun again criticized some of his partners in Premier Najib Miqati’s government for not doing anything to “combat corruption.”

Talking to supporters, Aoun said: “You must prepare yourselves for the upcoming (electoral) challenge, so that we don’t renew the mandate of those responsible for the current state of affairs.”

Addressing President Michel Suleiman, PM Miqati and the ministers, without naming them, Aoun added: “We are not joking, you have to wake up before it’s too late, you cannot carry on with this manner and this approach.”

Talks between Aoun and Ignatius IV tackled “the various developments in Lebanon and the region,” state-run National News Agency reported, without elaborating.

Aoun was accompanied by an FPM delegation comprising Energy and Water Minister Jebran Bassil, general coordinator Pierre Raffoul, constituent assembly member George Atallah and retired Brig. Gen. Maurice Jreij.

On Friday Aoun described the progress of the so-called Arab Spring as a “leap backwards,” warning that “some movements will install new dictatorships when they assume power.”

“The events in the Arab countries are a leap backwards and the real revolution happens in one’s own mind and against obsolete traditions,” Aoun said in an interview on Hizbullah’s Al-Manar television.

“The upcoming regimes will not be new and I foresee the rise of (Islamic) fundamentalism to power, the same as I had predicted 17 years ago,” he said.

Aoun stressed that he was not calling on the Christians of Lebanon and the region to isolate themselves or stand by idly amid the rapid developments.

“The Christians in the Orient are the children of this land and they have existed here before Islam. I’m not calling for neutralism, but rather for participation,” he clarified.

“The Christians should be at the core of the events and must choose what’s best for them. There are Christian dissidents in Syria, but the majority supports the regime’s reforms,” Aoun added.

Voicing concerns over the repercussions of a possible rise to power by Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, Aoun said: “The Islamists in (northern Lebanese city of) Tripoli do not acknowledge any borders and they are waiting for the Islamic revolution to sweep Beirut.”

In a recent joint statement, Ignatius IV and Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi have stressed that “only a state built upon justice and equality is capable of protecting all of its citizens.”

The two Christian leaders also “stressed their rejection of the notion of ‘protection’ for any group, from whichever side it may come.”

“Christians consider the state – the state of citizenship and equal rights and duties – as the real guarantee for a prosperous and promising future, where everyone would live in freedom and dignity, away from any religious or sectarian discrimination,” they said.

The joint statement came after remarks by Ignatius IV that embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is “an honest person who is working for reform” and a series of controversial statements by al-Rahi in France, where he called for giving Assad a chance to implement reforms.

Al-Rahi later said that his statements in France on the Syrian crisis and Hizbullah’s arms -- which stirred a storm of controversy in Lebanon – were not interpreted in a proper manner.

And he told Al-Arabiya television that sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites might emerge if the Syrian government was overthrown.

“If the regime changes in Syria, and the Sunnis take over, they will form an alliance with the Sunnis in Lebanon, which will worsen the situation between the Shiites and the Sunnis,” al-Rahi said.

He warned that the Christians will pay the price if the Muslim Brotherhood succeeded Assad.