Jumblat Urges Compromise to End Baabda Vacuum

Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblat has called for a compromise to end Lebanon’s almost two-year presidential deadlock.

Jumblat told LBCI’s Kalam al-Nass talk show late Thursday that Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun and Marada Movement chief lawmaker Suleiman Franjieh should reach a compromise to facilitate the election of a new president.

But the PSP chief said that he would not drop his support for the candidacy of MP Henri Helou “because I believe he has chances” to win the elections.

The latest rivalry between Aoun and Franjieh has stopped the bickering parties from electing a new head of state.

Franjieh rose to the forefront of the polls late last year when al-Mustaqbal Movement chief ex-PM Saad Hariri backed him as his candidate.

Hariri’s announcement was followed by a reconciliation between Aoun and his long-time rival Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea, who withdrew from the presidential race in favor of the MP.

But the country’s top Christian post at Baabda Palace has been vacant since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014. The rivalry between the different parliamentary blocs has caused lack of quorum at sessions aimed at electing a president.

Jumblat reiterated in the interview that he would submit his resignation to Speaker Nabih Berri as soon as the parliament convenes.

“My resignation letter is ready and I am waiting for the necessary legislation session in order to submit it,” he said.

Berri is seeking to reactivate the parliament, which has been paralyzed as a result of the differences between the rival blocs in the absence of a president.

G.K.

D.A.