Geagea: March 14 Adamant to Hold Presidential Polls on Time, No One is Capable of Imposing Cabinet Agenda
The March 14 alliance will work hard to hold the presidential elections at the end of President Michel Suleiman's mandate in May next year, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea said.
There will not be a repeat of previous elections in a sense that the mandate expires without being able to elect a new president, Geagea said.
“The Lebanese Constitution is very clear when it says that if a new president was not elected ten days before the end of the current head of state's tenure, then the parliament would meet automatically to elect a new president,” he told the Saudi Okaz daily in an interview.
Geagea rejected vacuum in the country's top post and reiterated that he wasn’t “currently” a candidate.
“But I will say it out loud when I decide to announce my candidacy, which will be accompanied by a very clear program because the campaign will not be a hobby,” he said.
Asked about the cabinet that Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam is seeking to form since his appointment in April, Geagea said: “The government should be made up of personalities from outside the March 8 and 14 alliances.”
He said it should be a technical cabinet that deals with the people's daily affairs.
“Currently neither March 8 or March 14 are capable of imposing their agenda,” he added.
Geagea also slammed Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, wondering “what victories he has achieved.”
“I believe that in the past 13 years and specifically since Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Hizbullah has been defeated,” he said, adding “its latest defeat was its involvement in the fighting in Syria against the Syrian people.”
Hizbullah members are fighting alongside President Bashar Assad's troops against the rebels that are trying to topple him.
Hizbullah and Nasrallah “have become the enemies of the Arab and Islamic people,” Geagea told Okaz. “Is that called victory?” the LF chief asked in reference to the latest remarks made by the party's secretary-general in a speech last week.
Geagea reiterated that Nasrallah is following “an ideology whose authority is outside Lebanon … and whose interests contradict Lebanese interests most of the time.”
The LF chief lauded Suleiman's one-day visit to Saudi Arabia on Monday, describing Riyadh as “the heart of the Arab and regional politics.”
Saudi Arabia had always supported Lebanon and its leaders did no harm to the Lebanese people and their interests, he said.
The trip came at the appropriate timing, Geagea added, after several local parties criticized Suleiman for making the visit during bad circumstances.
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