The Lebanese Forces, the Progressive Socialist Party, the Kataeb Party and a number of independent MPs are preparing to endorse a new plan to deal with the presidential crisis, after parliament failed to elect a president despite holding ten electoral sessions, an LF MP said.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi stressed Sunday that the election of a new president does not happen through “the heresy of prior agreement on him,” but rather through “a vote combined with consultations.”

A televised speech by Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah scheduled for Friday evening has been postponed for “health reasons,” Hezbollah’s media relations department said.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday pledged to continue carrying out his “duties” despite any “obstructions or difficulties.”

“We hope the new year will be the start of Lebanon’s exit from the stifling crisis it is going through,” Mikati said, during an end-of-the-year meeting with the premiership’s employees.

A Hezbollah commander and his bodyguard, both Lebanese, were killed when Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militants targeted their military vehicle with a guided missile in Aleppo’s western countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.

The attack also killed a Syrian national.

Gunshots hit al-Jadeed TV’s building overnight in Beirut’s Cola area, in the third attack against the TV network in four days.

“Heavy gunfire was heard in the channel’s vicinity and security forces guarding the building since several days said it was hit by several gunshots,” al-Jadeed said.

A fresh war of words has broken out between caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and the Free Patriotic Movement over signatures related to governmental decrees.

In a statement issued overnight, the FPM accused Mikati of “staging an act of forgery and using forgery in the issuance of unconstitutional and illegal decrees that contravene the National Pact,” charging that the premier has forged the signatures of the ministers of social affairs and defense on two decrees.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has noted that “disputes and divisions within the Christian community are not behind the presidential election crisis.”

“The notion that if Christians agree the presidential issue would be resolved is a wrong notion, because we have a candidate and we’re voting for him in every electoral session. Meanwhile there is a Christian group that is allied with Hezbollah and does not want to vote for our candidate,” Geagea said in an interview with al-Massira magazine to be published Friday.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday hit back at remarks by former president Michel Aoun.

“You did not need anyone to obstruct you, seeing as you promised us hell and fully fulfilled your promise,” Berri said in a statement.

Ex-president Michel Aoun has charged that Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh is “the main culprit responsible for the situation that the country has reached,” as he noted that Speaker Nabih Berri was one of the main “obstructors” during his presidential term.

“All that I know is that Speaker Berri was against my election as president and he obstructed 18 files that I was working on,” Aoun said in an interview on OTV.