Aoun and FPM Accused of Seeking to Postpone Elections

The “Aounist camp” wants to postpone the parliamentary elections for three and not two months so that the vote would be held in September, highly informed sources said.

The aim is to “prevent the presence of a caretaker cabinet for a four-month period, which would be a long time should there be failure to form a government in the period between the election of the new parliament and the date of the presidential elections, seeing as President (Michel) Aoun’s term ends on October 31,” the sources told al-Liwaa newspaper in remarks published Tuesday.

Parliamentary sources also accused Aoun’s camp, in remarks to the PSP’s al-Anbaa news portal, of insisting on the controversial megacenters plan with the aim of postponing the elections.

“The goal is either to delay the elections indefinitely or to hold them in September,” the sources said.

The sources also added that “there might be failure to form a new government in the period preceding the presidential election, which would prevent the election of a president due to the absence of a government.”

“Lebanon would then be plunged into presidential vacuum, and President Aoun might find this a reason for staying in Baabda and plunging the country into a new political crisis,” the sources went on to say.