March 14 Plans Large-Scale Meeting, Forms Network to Manage Battle Against Cabinet

The leadership of the March 14-led opposition is planning to hold a large-scale meeting in which former Premier Saad Hariri, who is currently in Paris, would take part ahead of the parliamentary vote of confidence session, al-Liwaa daily reported Thursday.

The newspaper said the meeting would be similar to the Bristol 2 conference and would be aimed at agreeing on the major steps that the opposition would take to confront Premier Najib Miqati’s cabinet in the parliament.

Al-Liwaa also said that rather than holding a large-scale meeting, the March 14 delegates could continue to visit the French capital to hold talks with Hariri there.

A delegation from the March 14 general-secretariat is planning to travel to Paris in the next few days to hold another round of talks with the Mustaqbal movement leader who has tasked the leadership of his party to coordinate with members of the opposition all necessary steps to unite and confront the new cabinet, the newspaper reported.

Earlier in the week, Hariri held talks with a March 14 delegation that included MP Marwan Hamadeh and former lawmakers Fares Soaid and Samir Franjieh.

The meetings in Paris led to an agreement to form a network whose mission is to manage the March 14 coalition’s “daily political stances as part of its open-ended battle with the government of Hizbullah and Syria in Lebanon pending its collapse,” an informed source told al-Liwaa said.

The intense meetings held among the alliance’s leaderships are furthermore aimed at setting their stance from President Michel Suleiman whom some March 14 parties accuse of tilting towards the March 8 forces and mainly Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun.

The March 14 forces are also mulling how to show unity as an opposition for the first time since 2005 during the vote of confidence session at parliament, the source added.

He said three scenarios are under discussion. Opposition MPs would either boycott the session and make stances from outside the parliament or transform the meeting into a “March 14 event” by leaving the parliament hall during the voting.

The third scenario involves not giving their vote of confidence to Miqati’s cabinet, the source added.