MP Alain Aoun has called on Lebanese Forces leader and presidential candidate Samir Geagea to endorse Free Patriotic Movement chief Michel Aoun's nomination to the top post, saying the country must head to parliamentary polls in order to prevent a protracted presidential vacuum.

“The priority is for the election of a president, but should that not be possible, we must hold parliamentary elections,” MP Aoun, a member of the Change and Reform bloc, said in an interview to be published Monday by al-Liwaa newspaper.

Telecom Minister Butros Harb slammed on Monday the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Michel Aoun, considering him responsible for the ongoing presidential deadlock.

“Aoun refuses to engage in any electoral process if he wasn't 100% sure that he will be elected” as the new head of state, Harb said in comments published in the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat on Sunday.

Head of the Progressive Socialist Party MP Walid Jumblat is expected to travel to the French capital Paris soon in order to hold talks with Mustaqbal Movement leader MP Saad Hariri over the presidential elections, reported As Safir newspaper on Saturday.

It said that Jumblat is expected to inquire about the details of the rapprochement between the Mustaqbal and the Free Patriotic Movement of MP Michel Aoun.

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun remained mum on a proposal made by his rival Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea to resolve the presidential deadlock but his silence was explained as a source of rejection.

Aoun met with a delegation from Maronite institutions on Thursday. Sources of the conferees in Rabieh said the lawmaker did not comment on a suggestion made by Geagea to either run against him for office or to meet and agree on a consensual nominee.

March 14 General Secretariat Coordinator Fares Soaid on Thursday called for taking “necessary measures” towards Syrians “moving freely” between Lebanon and Syria, stressing that they are not part of the refugees who have fled “the killing machine called Bashar Assad.”

“The scene of the Syrian presidential elections that were held in Lebanon raises a question mark regarding the definition of a Syrian refugee. Do all Syrians residing in Lebanon really need to be in Lebanon?” Soaid said after meeting Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea in Maarab.

Lebanese Forces leader and presidential candidate Samir Geagea presented his political rival MP Michel Aoun with two suggestions in an attempt to end the impasse, calling on the Free Patriotic Movement chief to either run against him for office or to meet and agree on a consensual nominee, media reports said on Thursday.

Al-Liwaa newspaper quoted a Maronite leader as saying that Geagea informed a delegation of the sect's institutions that he has two suggestions to Aoun.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea accused on Wednesday the March 8 camp of obstructing quorum during the presidential polls, urging Speaker Nabih Berri to exert the sufficient pressure to persuade all lawmakers to attend elections sessions.

He said during a press conference at his Maarab residence: “We seek a president who won't conspire against the constitution.”

Telecom Minister and presidential hopeful Butros Harb announced Tuesday that state institutions cannot continue functioning amid the current presidential vacuum, following talks with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea in Maarab.

“The March 14 forces have taken a unified decision and said that state institutions cannot continue their work in the absence of a president as if there is no problem in the country,” Harb said after the meeting.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea lamented on Saturday that outgoing president Michel Suleiman was being attacked while he tried to restore the state's sovereignty, linking also the deteriorating living conditions in the country to the presence of an armed statelet.

"Suleiman said the army must be the only serious force in the country and that sovereignty cannot be detracted, and that's why he was attacked,” Geagea said in a speech he gave during a LF event in Maarab.

MP Mohammed Raad, the head of Hizbullah's Loyalty to Resistance bloc, on Friday described the behavior of lawmakers boycotting parliamentary sessions to elect a new president as a “constitutional” right.

“MPs are addressing the issue of electing a president according to their constitutional, legal, political, human and national right,” Raad said during a Hizbullah ceremony in the southern town of Jbaa.