If the Third North District is known as the district of presidents, as it includes the strongest Maronite figures nominated for the presidency, its results have come loaded with indications and messages that will significantly mix the cards and calculations for those aspiring to sit on the Baabda chair, according to sources from the opposition political arena.
According to the official results announced by Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi, the voter turnout in the district comprising Batroun, Bsharri, Zgharta, and Koura reached 44.2%. The elected candidates include: Ghiyath Yazbek, Gibran Bassil, William Touq, Strida Geagea, Tony Frangieh, Michel Moawad, Michel Douaihi, George Atallah, Fadi Karam, and Adib Abd al-Masih.
In numbers, in Batroun, the Lebanese Forces candidate, Deputy Ghiyath Yazbek, came in first, surpassing the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, Deputy Gibran Bassil, by more than 2,000 votes. In Zgharta, the opposition achieved a notable victory, with both the head of the Independence Movement, Deputy Michel Moawad, and Michel Douaihi from civil society winning, along with independent Adib Abd al-Masih supported by the Kataeb Party, while the representation of the Marada Movement was limited to Deputy Tony Frangieh, who managed to secure a seat in the Parliament alone, while the other members of his list in Zgharta did not succeed.
Thus, the sources continue, two main presidential candidates, Bassil and the head of the Marada Movement, Sleiman Frangieh, were defeated in their own strongholds, in Batroun and Zgharta, in favor of the Lebanese Forces, independents, and civil society. Therefore, since the March 8 coalition led by Hezbollah is working to choose one of them to lead them into the Baabda Palace as a replacement for President Michel Aoun, and while both men aimed to solidify their leadership in the Christian street, especially before the eyes of the southern suburb, to enhance their chances of support from it in the presidential race, the numbers produced by the May 15th ballots did not assist them in this mission, and logically, these discouraging "scores" should have quashed the presidential ambitions of both Bassil and Frangieh unless they, along with Hezbollah, intend to deny reality as Bassil did in his press conference yesterday when he asserted that he remains the leader of the parliamentary bloc and the largest bloc in Parliament, while Frangieh today considered that "the election results have no relation to presidential calculations," the sources conclude.
