Bassil says Joseph Aoun presidential candidate of 'anti-Lebanon scheme'
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has noted that the extension of Army chief Joseph Aoun’s term has “removed the masks and showed the true faces” of the political forces that backed it.
“It has revealed that Joseph Aoun is the candidate of the West and those who bow to the West’s will in Lebanon,” Bassil said in an interview with al-Akhbar newspaper.
“Accordingly, no one can from now on claim that the army chief is a consensual (presidential) candidate or that he enjoys unanimity, for it has become clear that he is the candidate of a single camp, and that extending his term is aimed at using the army commander post to reach the presidency,” Bassil added.
“They want him to keep the post because the post is what gives him presidential significance, or else why wouldn’t he maintain his nomination without being an army chief?” Bassil wondered.
He also charged that “the scheme aiming to dismantle entities in the region, which fragmented Iraq and Syria and struck Lebanon, which was behind the July 2006 aggression and which was behind striking us on Oct. 17, 2019 is the same scheme that wants Joseph Aoun for president.”
“It wants to eradicate Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, it wants to implement Resolution 1701 in a one-sided way, and it wants to keep the displaced (Syrians) in Lebanon to use them for sedition purposes,” Bassil went on to say.
Expecting that the intensity of the Gaza war would start to get lower with the beginning of the new year, the FPM chief said that, in parallel, attempts to activate Lebanon’s presidential file would also begin.
“It is certain that those seeking the election of Joseph Aoun as president will try to repeat the pressure that they exerted to secure the extension of his term,” Bassil added.
Source: Naharnet
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