Lebanese Officials Begin Mulling Names of Presidential Candidates

This aerial view shows activists and relatives of the 2020 Beirut port blast victims spreading a giant national flag, as they march in the Lebanese capital's port area on August 4, 2022, on the day that crisis-hit country marks two years since a giant explosion ripped through the capital. (AFP)
This aerial view shows activists and relatives of the 2020 Beirut port blast victims spreading a giant national flag, as they march in the Lebanese capital's port area on August 4, 2022, on the day that crisis-hit country marks two years since a giant explosion ripped through the capital. (AFP)
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Lebanese Officials Begin Mulling Names of Presidential Candidates

This aerial view shows activists and relatives of the 2020 Beirut port blast victims spreading a giant national flag, as they march in the Lebanese capital's port area on August 4, 2022, on the day that crisis-hit country marks two years since a giant explosion ripped through the capital. (AFP)
This aerial view shows activists and relatives of the 2020 Beirut port blast victims spreading a giant national flag, as they march in the Lebanese capital's port area on August 4, 2022, on the day that crisis-hit country marks two years since a giant explosion ripped through the capital. (AFP)

Lebanese political blocs have kicked off “cautious” efforts to discuss potential presidential candidates to succeed Michel Aoun, whose term ends in around 80 days.

In general terms, the president is expected to be “open” to all parties and blocs, enjoy “internal political consensus”, and be able to address the international community and put Lebanon “on the right track to recovery”.

The presidential election needs the attendance of two thirds of the 128-member parliament to meet the desired quorum. A candidate is declared a winner after reaping over two thirds of votes in the first round.

This usually demands agreements between various political blocs, rivals and allies alike. Discussions to reach such agreements started about a month ago.

MPs of the civilian protest movement for change have in recent weeks discussed the characteristics of potential candidates without delving into names, said sources monitoring the discussions.

Some of the 13 Change lawmakers are in contact with opposition political forces and others to garner their views and attempt to reach possible understandings over the elections, the sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The Change MPs are in agreement with traditional political forces over some issues and disagreement over others, namely that the president must not be a partisan or military figure.

The latter position clashes with the Lebanese Forces that supports the nomination of army commander Joseph Aoun if consensus is reached over him.

Some Change MPs agree with the LF, Kataeb and Progressive Socialist Party over a candidate who is “sovereign” - meaning a figure not affiliated with Iran - and supports the independence of the judiciary, which they view as the foundation of any state seeking transparency and accountability and that wants to combat corruption.

They are also aspiring for a president who would approve the financial and economic recovery plan.

The Change MPs have stressed their openness to all non-partisan figures.

Change MP Ibrahim Mneimneh told Asharq Al-Awsat that the discussions have not been completed yet.

He said he wants the election of a president who will pursue reform and has a political and economic vision that “gives hope to the people.”

The president must be a centrist who is not affiliated with any of the regional powers, he added.

“He must be solely loyal to Lebanon,” he underlined. He must also enjoy international relations and be accepted by the international community so that he can mend Lebanon’s ties with Arab and friendly nations that have been damaged in recent years.

On the reluctance to nominate a military figure, Mneimneh explained that the Change MPs prefer for the military to be separated from politics.

“We prefer for the president to be a civilian,” he remarked.

“We are hoping to be united in nominating a president,” he said in wake of the division that emerged among the Change MPs in naming a prime minister in recent months.

As the debate over the presidential nominations gains steam among the LF, Kataeb and other blocs, Hezbollah has notably remained silent.

The Iran-backed party has yet to throw its support behind a candidate in spite of its alliance with the Free Patriotic Movement, which is headed by MP Gebran Bassil and whose founder is President Aoun, and close ties with head of the Marada movement, Suleiman Franjieh, a potential candidate.

The traditional parties each seemingly have their own characteristics of what a candidate should be like.

The LF believes its leader Samir Geagea to be a shoe-in for president and does not want a candidate from the March 8 camp to be elected.

The Marada movement believes a candidate must be a consensual figure. The Shiite Amal movement, of parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, believes the president must respect Islamic, Christian and national views. This position is in line with former prime minister Fuad Siniora, who believes that the presidential elections is not a strictly Christian affair.

The FPM, meanwhile, believes that the president must enjoy popular representation, reflecting “the political national will expressed by the people in the parliamentary elections.”

“What’s the point of democracy, elections and political work if the concept of respecting popular representation is ignored?” says the movement.



'We Will Die from Hunger': Gazans Decry Israel's UNRWA Ban

 Itimad Al-Qanou, a displaced Palestinian mother from Jabalia, eats with her children inside a tent, amid Israel-Gaza conflict, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, November 9, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Itimad Al-Qanou, a displaced Palestinian mother from Jabalia, eats with her children inside a tent, amid Israel-Gaza conflict, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, November 9, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
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'We Will Die from Hunger': Gazans Decry Israel's UNRWA Ban

 Itimad Al-Qanou, a displaced Palestinian mother from Jabalia, eats with her children inside a tent, amid Israel-Gaza conflict, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, November 9, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Itimad Al-Qanou, a displaced Palestinian mother from Jabalia, eats with her children inside a tent, amid Israel-Gaza conflict, in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, November 9, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

After surviving more than a year of war in Gaza, Aisha Khaled is now afraid of dying of hunger if vital aid is cut off next year by a new Israeli law banning the UN Palestinian relief agency from operating in its territory.

The law, which has been widely criticised internationally, is due to come into effect in late January and could deny Khaled and thousands of others their main source of aid at a time when everything around them is being destroyed.

"For me and for a million refugees, if the aid stops, we will end. We will die from hunger not from war," the 31-year-old volunteer teacher told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

"If the school closes, where do we go? All the aspects of our lives are dependent on the agency: flour, food, water ...(medical) treatment, hospitals," Khaled said from an UNRWA school in Nuseirat in central Gaza.

"We depend on them after God," she said.

UNRWA employs 13,000 people in Gaza, running the enclave's schools, healthcare clinics and other social services, as well as distributing aid.

Now, UNRWA-run buildings, including schools, are home to thousands forced to flee their homes after Israeli airstrikes reduced towns across the strip to wastelands of rubble.

UNRWA shelters have been frequently bombed during the year-long war, and at least 220 UNRWA staff have been killed, Reuters reported.

If the Israeli law as passed last month does come into effect, the consequences would be "catastrophic," said Inas Hamdan, UNRWA's Gaza communications officer.

"There are two million people in Gaza who rely on UNRWA for survival, including food assistance and primary healthcare," she said.

The law banning UNRWA applies to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Gaza and Arab East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in 1967 during the Six-Day War.

Israeli lawmakers who drafted the ban cited what they described as the involvement of a handful of UNRWA's thousands of staffers in the attack on southern Israel last year that triggered the war and said some staff were members of Hamas and other armed groups.

FRAGILE LIFELINE

The war in Gaza erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, after Hamas attack. Israel's military campaign has levelled much of Gaza and killed around 43,500 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say. Up to 10,000 people are believed to be dead and uncounted under the rubble, according to Gaza's Civil Emergency Service.

Most of the strip's 2.3 million people have been forced to leave their homes because of the fighting and destruction.

The ban ends Israel's decades-long agreement with UNRWA that covered the protection, movement and diplomatic immunity of the agency in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

For many Palestinians, UNRWA aid is their only lifeline, and it is a fragile one.

Last week, a committee of global food security experts warned there was a strong likelihood of imminent famine in northern Gaza, where Israel renewed an offensive last month.

Israel rejected the famine warning, saying it was based on "partial, biased data".

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that deals with Palestinian civilian affairs, said last week that it was continuing to "facilitate the implementation of humanitarian efforts" in Gaza.

But UN data shows the amount of aid entering Gaza has plummeted to its lowest level in a year and the United Nations has accused Israel of hindering and blocking attempts to deliver aid, particularly to the north.

"The daily average of humanitarian trucks the Israeli authorities allowed into Gaza last month is 30 trucks a day," Hamdan said, adding that the figure represents 6% of the supplies that were allowed into Gaza before this war began.

"More aid must be sent to Gaza, and UNRWA work should be facilitated to manage this aid entering Gaza," she said.

'BACKBONE' OF AID SYSTEM

Many other aid organizations rely on UNRWA to help them deliver aid and UN officials say the agency is the backbone of the humanitarian response in Gaza.

"From our perspective, and I am sure from many of the other humanitarian actors, it's an impossible task (to replace UNRWA)," said Oxfam GB's humanitarian lead Magnus Corfixen in a phone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"The priority is to ensure that they will remain ... because they are essential for us," he said.

UNRWA supports other agencies with logistics, helping them source the fuel they need to move staff and power desalination plants, he said.

"Without them, we will struggle with access to warehouses, having access to fuel, having access to trucks, being able to move around, being able to coordinate," Corfixen said, describing UNRWA as "essential".

UNRWA schools also offer rare respite for traumatised children who have lost everything.

Twelve-year-old Lamar Younis Abu Zraid fled her home in Maghazi in central Gaza at the beginning of the war last year.

The UNRWA school she used to attend as a student has become a shelter, and she herself has been living in another school-turned-shelter in Nuseirat for a year.

Despite the upheaval, in the UNRWA shelter she can enjoy some of the things she liked doing before war broke out.

She can see friends, attend classes, do arts and crafts and join singing sessions. Other activities are painfully new but necessary, like mental health support sessions to cope with what is happening.

She too is aware of the fragility of the lifeline she has been given. Now she has to share one copybook with a friend because supplies have run out.

"Before they used to give us books and pens, now they are not available," she said.