The father of Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, Farid Geagea, passed away on Tuesday evening.
Geagea, the father, was around 92 years old and he was suffering from health complications related to aging in the past months, LF sources told Naharnet.
Full StoryProgressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat announced Tuesday that he will soon inform al-Mustaqbal movement chief Saad Hariri that his Democratic Gathering bloc will neither vote for Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun nor for Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea in the presidential election.
“We're opposed to the election of Aoun as president and I will tell Saad Hariri if I met him that we will neither vote for Aoun nor for Geagea," Jumblat said in an interview on Al-Arabiya's Al-Hadath TV channel.
Full StoryThe Maronite Patriarchate denied on Tuesday reports claiming that Bkirki has a list of candidates for the presidential post.
The Patriarchate stressed that it didn't interfere and will not intervene in the “game of names.”
Full StoryLebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday presented three “solutions” to end the presidential impasse, 15 days after former President Michel Suleiman left office with no successor to take his place in the coming six years.
Among his suggested “solutions,” Geagea proposed selecting two nominees from the March 14 and the March 8 coalitions other than himself and Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun, and voting for one of them at the parliament.
Full StoryThe presidential vacuum entered its third week on Monday as a large number of lawmakers failed to attend an electoral session, which met the fate of its predecessors over differences between the rival parties on a compromise candidate.
Speaker Nabih Berri adjourned the session to elect a new president to June 18 after MPs once again did not guarantee the needed two-thirds quorum.
Full StoryLebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea is expected to launch an initiative next week to end the deadlock over the presidential elections, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.
It said that his initiative will likely include “extending the hand to the March 8 alliance.”
Full StoryTalks between al-Mustaqbal movement and the Free Patriotic Movement have not stopped, a high-ranking official said despite a claim made by al-Mustaqbal MP Assem Araji that the meetings are not leading anywhere.
The official, who is a member of ex-PM Saad Hariri's al-Mustaqbal movement, told As Safir newspaper published on Friday that contacts between the two sides “are serious and ongoing.”
Full StoryA delegation from the Maronite institutions visited on Thursday Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi to brief him on the result of its talks with the country's top Maronite political leaders on the country's presidential crisis, stressing that the vacuum contradicted the National Pact.
Following its meeting with al-Rahi in Bkirki, the delegation issued a statement saying the failure to elect a president and the continued presence of the government contradicted the 1943 power-sharing agreement and abolished the Maronite president.
Full StoryDeputy Speaker Farid Makari slammed the political apathy, warning of extending the period of presidential vacuum over the sharp differences between the rival parties.
“Before May 25 the political arch-foes were enthusiastic to elect a new president... but now each alliance is reconsidering its stances, which might affect the period of vacancy,” Makari said in a interview with the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat.
Full StoryLebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Monday condemned what he described as the "insolent campaigns" that are targeting Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi over his controversial visit to the Holy Land and Israel, saying he will maintain contacts with Bkirki in a bid to put an end to the ongoing presidential vacuum.
According to a statement issued by his press office, Geagea telephoned al-Rahi, expressing his “strong condemnation of the campaigns that are targeting His Eminence” and describing them as “insolent campaigns that breach all Lebanese norms and traditions.”
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