Former President Michel Aoun accuses Hezbollah of “threats” after supporting Azour’s candidacy for the Lebanese Presidency

He affirms that “democracy stipulates freedom of choice” and stresses that the group “must take the first step towards a solution”

June 13 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Former Lebanese President Michel Aoun has criticized the Shiite militia party Hezbollah for “treasonous accusations and threats” against him “through the press” since he left office for the end of his term on October 31, 2022, without for the moment the parties have reached an agreement on his replacement.

Aoun has defended that he “did not abandon” Hezbollah “neither during the July war — in reference to the 2006 conflict with Israel — nor in supporting the resistance nor in the confrontation against the Islamic State.” “I have nothing against them. Should accusations of treason and threats through the press be my reward?”, He has wondered.

“Is it reasonable to be accused of treason for rejecting a supposed candidate?” asked Aoun, whose party, the National Patriotic Movement, has backed former finance minister Jihad Azour against the leader of the Marada movement, Suleiman Franjié, who has the support from Hezbollah and the also Shiite AMAL.

Thus, he has stated that his party and the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, “have repeatedly agreed that a political dispute does not negate a friendship”, before insisting that “democracy stipulates freedom of choice”, as reported the Lebanese news portal Naharnet.

“The other party must take the first step towards a solution,” Aoun stressed, just days before a June 14 session in parliament in which lawmakers are expected to reach an agreement on a new president. The vote will be the twelfth, after eleven unsuccessful attempts to name Aoun’s replacement.

Azour, who was director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the Middle East and North Africa until the weekend, made his candidacy official on Monday and stated that “it does not pose a challenge to anyone”, in the face of the rejection expressed by Hezbollah and its allies. For his part, Franyié said on Sunday that he “has no problem” when it comes to reaching an agreement on “a patriotic and unity candidate.

The Hezbollah parliamentary bloc announced last week that it will participate in the session called on June 14 to try to elect the new president of Lebanon and confirmed that it will support Franjié after rejecting the candidacy of Azour, whom it described as “a confrontational and challenge”.

To be elected, the president must obtain the support of two thirds of the parliamentarians -86 of the 128– in the first round or an absolute majority in the event that more votes have to be held, as contemplated in article 49 of the Lebanese constitution.

Aoun was elected president in 2016 after almost fifty parliamentary sessions that lasted for two and a half years. Lebanon has been trapped for several years in a deep and prolonged political, economic and social crisis that has caused more than 70 percent of the population to live below the poverty line and a banking system that has been paralyzed since October 2019.