House Speaker Nabih Berri changed his mind about turning the Thursday election session into a dialogue session among deputies to discuss the presidential election issue, after failing to reach a minimum level of consensus on a particular candidate. Instead, he called for a regular election session, which is expected to repeat the scenario of past meetings and won't bring anything new, as the local and external political conditions have not changed.
The reason for Berri's retreat from calling for dialogue is the rejection of the idea by some Christian parties, especially the Lebanese Forces, which stated that the proposal is a clear obstruction to the constitutional obligation of electing a president or an indefinite extension of the reality of presidential vacancy. Therefore, he preferred to maintain a regular election session.
Member of the "Development and Liberation" bloc, MP Qassem Hashem, pointed out that "the reason for Berri's step to call for an electoral rather than a dialogue session is the refusal of the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement to participate in the dialogue. This issue has had a negative impact, meaning there is a tendency not to facilitate the election of a president, as dialogue is what opens the horizon for solutions more quickly."
He noted in an interview with "Al-Anbaa" that "there are those who do not want dialogue and have a specific agenda regarding the issue, knowing that the Lebanese formula necessitates communication and consensus. Hiding behind titles and slogans is not effective in this critical phase of Lebanon's history." Regarding the expected scenario in the upcoming session, Hashem believed that "some trends may change; there might be a new method of voting as occurred in the last session, but all of this will not change anything in the overall picture."
