Report: Bassil backing Azour for presidency in bid to lift US sanctions

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil is trying to promote a number of presidential candidates, topped by Jihad Azour, who served as finance minister in Fouad Saniora’s first government, a media report said.

“Bassil has endorsed Azour for several considerations, most notably that he is a figure that was previously considered to be close to ex-PM Fouad Saniora and the March 14 camp, and accordingly the FPM chief thinks that a part of this camp might support him,” the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Monday.

“This was the reason behind Bassil’s invitation to the LF for dialogue, thinking that the LF would accept the former finance minister,” the daily added.

It said that another point pushing Bassil to prefer Azour over others is “because the man is the Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund and has broad relations with the Fund’s members and with the Americans.”

“Bassil has agreed with him that, once elected, he would seek to exert efforts to convince the Americans to lift the sanctions off” him, Nidaa al-Watan added.

The newspaper also noted that Bassil has “a good relation with the brother of the ex-finance minister, the contractor Tony Azour, whom Bassil had tasked with a number of dam projects.”

Nidaa al-Watan added that Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi did not voice support for Azour when Bassil raised the issue with them. The newspaper also said that the Lebanese Forces and the March 14 camp have not shown any enthusiasm towards Azour’s nomination.