Breath-holding dominates the political scene amid "psychological warfare" and counting of votes, and the continued efforts of the "intersecting" team to support the former minister, Jihad Azour, internally and externally, to reach a difference in votes between him and his rival, Sleiman Frangieh, that allows the two men to be overthrown together, amid the conviction that Wednesday's session will not end up with a new president.
This article was originally published in and translated from the Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar.
On Sunday, an external movement was recorded, represented by the resumption of French-Saudi contacts regarding the Lebanese file, with the move of the advisor to the Saudi Royal Court, Nizar al-Aloula, to Paris, accompanied by Ambassador Walid Al-Bukhari, who left Beirut for Riyadh.
While the French Ambassador, Anne Grillo, is supposed to return to Beirut in preparation for a round of contacts before the upcoming visit of the new Personal Envoy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, to Lebanon after Wednesday's session, it was learned that a Qatari envoy would visit Beirut soon.
Meanwhile, the political tension began to take sharp proportions, prompting some members of Azour's team, especially the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, to put forward ideas and initiatives to ease the tension rather than modify the direction.
This prompted Speaker Nabih Berri to refuse to receive MP Taymour Jumblatt, delegated by his father, while Hezbollah refused to "talk through mediation" as the positions became clear.
Even the reference conveyed by Jumblatt and others about Azour's "desire" to postpone the session for a while, the [Shiite] duo refused to pick it up. It informed that the session was on time, that the duo and its allies would vote for Frangieh, and that the ceiling of the constitution governed their dealings with the second session.
The team supporting Azour has focused on mobilizing more votes in the past few days. After confirming the votes of 32 deputies who declared their position to withdraw the candidacy of Michel Moawad, eight from the "Democratic Gathering" were added to them, and names were said to have been "worked" by the Maronite Patriarchate, such as MP Neemat Frem.
While the search continues with his colleague MP Jamil Abboud, at the same time, it was reported that MP Mark Daou and Waddah Sadek persuaded their "colleague" Firas Hamdan to join this team and that MP Paula Yacoubian is also considering joining MP Melhem Khalaf.
It remains to be known the actual number of votes that MP Gebran Bassil will secure from the members of the Strong Lebanon bloc, mainly since he spoke about the commitment of all the current deputies and that the Tashnag bloc, which has not yet decided on its decision, is closer to the Christian consensus.
If these numbers are confirmed, Azour's team speaks of no less than 56 votes, which may increase to 62, in connection with contacts with several independent MPs.
However, parliamentary sources told al-Akhbar, that "the team supporting Azour is desperate to collect 65 votes without succeeding so far, even if the former finance minister was ahead of Frangieh with some votes," noting that Bassil "failed" to force the objecting Strong Lebanon bloc deputies to abide by the decision of the Free Patriotic Movement and that there are no fewer than four deputies who will not vote for Azour in addition to the Tashnag deputies.
As for the team supporting Frangieh, it stems from an alliance of 45 deputies, including 31 for the Shiite duo, with MP Jamil Al Sayyed, five from the National Accord bloc, three deputies from the north, Frangieh's bloc consisting of four deputies, and two deputies from the Strong Lebanon bloc.
According to al-Akhbar, this team's sources confirm that others may join on the day of the session and that they heard positive words from the Tashnag and others classified as "white paper voters."
With the "pointage" of the two teams, it is still difficult to accurately determine the "hesitant" blocs, amid an understanding between the candidates who refuse to vote with a white paper in the first session and the efforts made by those to raise their number to more than twenty votes, which opens the door to search for a third option.
The "white paper" team includes three deputies of Sidon and Jezzine, Osama Saad, Abdel Rahman Al-Bizri, and Charbel Massad, and it is assumed that deputies Ibrahim Mneimneh, Halime El Kaakour, Elias Jarade, Yassin Yassin, Najat Saliba, and Cynthia Zarazir, two deputies from Beirut, Imad el-Hout and Nabil Badr, and six deputies from the north, will join them.
In addition to two deputies from Al Jabal and the Bekaa, the number of votes for this team ranges between 17 and 19.
The "workers" of this "assembly" say that the goal is not to vote for a candidate per se but rather to inform the other two parties that the third option has a strong presence in the council and that it must be negotiated with him to reach a consensus president from outside the names presented, which have become a title for confrontation.
On the eve of the session, Frangieh announced for the first time his official candidacy for the presidency on the anniversary of the Ehden massacre, in which his father, Tony Frangieh, his mother, his sister, and twenty-eight others were victims.
He confirmed at the Divine Liturgy that was held in the courtyard of the palace of the late President Suleiman Frangieh, "On June 13, they came while we were sleeping. Today, we are aware."
From 1978 until today, Frangieh indicated that Christians are victims of Christian parties before anyone else, recalling the wars they fought to eliminate each other, stressing that "it is time to reassure Christians that their partner in the homeland does not want to cancel them, and I am not ashamed that I belong to a political project. But my allies and friends know I would be open to everyone if I were president."
Frangieh said: "We started from our conviction of dialogue, and we are continuing with this conviction. I did not impose myself on anyone, and we have no problem agreeing on a national and inclusive candidate."
He emphasized that the relationship with Patriarch al-Rahi is "friendly and excellent." He described the French initiative as "pragmatic, and France is searching for a realistic solution while it knows Lebanon, and there are those who want a president to reassure him."
He stressed that he is "committed to reforms, the Taif Agreement, and the principle of administrative decentralization, and in my dictionary, there is no disruption in political life, and the strong president does not say "they did not let us."