Raï: It is Nabih Berry who is blocking the presidential election

Patriarch Bechara Raï, for the first time, criticized the President of the House, Nabih Berry, by name for blocking the presidential election.

“The President of the House, Nabih Berry, is responsible for blocking the presidential election, because he is closing down Parliament when he is obliged (by the Constitution) to open it,” thundered the head of the House. Maronite Church in an interview given to La Voix du Liban during the weekend.

Beyond the fact that these remarks come a few days before the second commemoration of the vacancy at the head of state (after the end of Michel Aoun’s mandate, October 31, 2022), this is the first time that the head of the Maronite Church attacks Mr. Berry by name and also clearly accuses him of obstructing the election of a new president, the highest position reserved for Maronites in the official hierarchy. The prelate launched this accusation in a tense context for the head of the legislature. While being the chief negotiator with the United States, through their envoy for Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, to end the war between Hezbollah and Israel, Mr. Berry has been threatened for several days with American sanctions for having “ blocked” with its Shiite ally the holding of the Lebanese presidential election. Add to this the recent Israeli strikes against regions considered to be Berry strongholds. An approach seen as carrying strong Israeli messages towards the one who juggles between his alliance with Hezbollah and his status as official negotiator on behalf of a Lebanon without a president.

The patriarch was not content with explicitly attacking the head of the legislature. He again criticized the pressure exerted by Mr. Berry so that the future head of state would be the result of a general consensus. For him, there must be a proper election as stipulated in the Constitution. “Some are pleading for an agreement around the presidential election, even though this is contrary to the Constitution because every Maronite has the right to access the presidency of the Republic. And they are aware of it,” launched Béchara Raï in a dig at Nabih Berry who has long conditioned the resumption of parliamentary sessions dedicated to the vote (suspended since June 14, 2023) by a dialogue which would lead to a generalized agreement. A condition that the President of the House, in the wake of the setbacks suffered by Hezbollah on the ground, abandoned in order to speed up the holding of the presidential election but… not before a ceasefire.

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It is around this last point that another criticism from Mgr Raï was directed at Mr. Berry but also at Hezbollah which continues, in practice, to link the country and its constitutional deadlines to the end of the war, a conflict “which the Lebanese people and government do not want, and which the country was dragged into after abandoning neutrality,” said Mgr Raï who had long pressed to enshrine this principle and keep Lebanon far from regional conflicts. “What is happening today is delaying the presidential election which is moving away as we continue to link it to the end of the war in Lebanon and Gaza,” regretted the patriarch, recalling that “the country which agonise needs a president who enjoys the trust of the Lebanese people and who has skills in security and the economy.”

The religious summit and the Paris conference

Mgr Raï avoided mentioning the names of those eligible for president, echoing the Holy See on this level. “The Vatican is working with several countries for the holding of the presidential election, but does not get involved in the names,” he assured, arguing that Pope Francis questioned him on the reasons behind the delay in filling the empty in Baabda. The patriarch (who also spoke with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, number two of the Holy See) also confided that he had given the sovereign pontiff three documents: one political, focused on the vacancy at the head of state, the second relating to the social situation after the massive displacement of the population due to the war between Israel and Hezbollah, and a third repeating the press release published at the end of the Muslim-Christian religious summit held in Bkerké on October 16.

This text, adopted with the approval of all religious leaders, including the president of the Shiite Higher Council, Sheikh Ali el-Khatib, close to the Shiite tandem, had notably called for an immediate ceasefire, the application of Security Council resolution 1701 (2006) – which ended the 2006 war between the Party of God and the Jewish state – in its entirety (including the withdrawal of the Shiite party from areas to the south Litani). The dignitaries also called for the election of a “president who would benefit from the trust of all Lebanese people, from the broadest understanding and the greatest consensus”.

In his homily delivered Sunday in Bkerké, Béchara Raï dwelled on this press release stressing that the summit “insisted, like the previous ones, on the constants at the heart of the Lebanese formula, starting with the unity of the Lebanese around their State, through solidarity which transcends all political differences”. “We are following with the religious leaders the modalities of the implementation of the communiqué of this summit, which constituted a glimmer of hope in these dark times,” said the head of the Maronite Church.

On another note, the Patriarch welcomed the conference of “support for the people and the sovereignty of Lebanon” held last Thursday in Paris at the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron. In addition to the envelope of one billion dollars which it resulted in, the conference converged with the religious summit of Bkerké on the next steps to follow on both political and military levels in Lebanon. Mgr Raï therefore saw in it “a road map for a diplomatic solution to the current conflict”.