Report: 5-nation group to use carrot-and-stick tactic to push for Aoun's election
The five-nation group on Lebanon met in Doha on Monday to “discuss a single matter: moving to the choice of the third candidate – Army Commander General Joseph Aoun,” informed sources said.
The group discussed “means to convince the Shiite Duo, specifically Hezbollah, with this nomination, studying a list of pressures that can be exerted in the coming period to achieve this objective, which included a lot of ideas, among them barring tourists from visiting Lebanon to undermine the touristic season,” the sources told al-Akhbar newspaper in remarks published Friday.
The conferees tackled “the needed pressure to push Hezbollah not only to back down from its support for Suleiman Franjieh, but also to what’s a lot further than the presidency,” the sources added, noting that “the coming days will be rife with political, economic, financial and even security pressures.”
Accordingly, “the Qataris are expected to begin a new round of meetings with the political forces, this time under a clear objective: promoting Joseph Aoun,” the sources said.
“The new round has already kicked off and communication has started with the various political forces to convince them of the Joseph Aoun choice,” the sources added, noting that “there are incentivization efforts not limited to politics, seeing as huge budgets have been earmarked based on the size and influence of each bloc in parliament.”
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