Bassil Floats Idea of Electing President by Popular Vote

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Saturday suggested that the Lebanese should elect their president in a popular vote as part of ideas that he proposed to reform the political system.

“It is permissible for us here to seriously think of electing the president of the republic directly by the people in two electoral rounds, in order to preserve the post’s special status, symbolism and its representation of all Lebanese,” Bassil said at a FPM seminar on civil state.

“We in the FPM believe in Lebanon’s unity and that living together must remain the choice of the Lebanese and not only their fate,” he added.

“We are convinced that the state’s failure is caused by the bad system and that the solutions for its crisis lie in reforming it and not in tearing up the social contract between us,” Bassil went on to say.

He accordingly warned all Lebanese that failure to agree on a viable system would “give foreign forces an excuse to impose on us what would satisfy them rather than satisfy us.”

“We have been criticized because under the current sectarian system, we have been unyielding in demanding the rights of the Christians in the state and this is a truth that we do not deny. We rather hold onto it because we are clinging to national partnership, whereas others in the past sought to end partnership under the excuse of securing rights,” Bassil added.

He also explained that the FPM’s ambition is to “move from the rights of sects to the rights of the citizen,” because it is “a cross-confessional movement in the first place.”

“We aspire to rise above sectarianism all the way to abolishing it and achieving secularity through complete separation between religions and the state,” Bassil added.