A former Aounist minister relays a statement from Gebran Bassil during a private meeting with a select few members of the Free Patriotic Movement, saying: "President Nabih Berri treats us with malice, and he is ready to do anything and everything not only to eliminate me but to uproot the movement from political life. He believes that achieving this is possible by bringing Sleiman Franjieh to the Baabda Palace; my battle with Sleiman Franjieh is an existential one."
Deputy Bassil is waging his presidential campaign with two strategies. The first is to reach the presidency as a successor to his uncle, former president Michel Aoun, as an indispensable candidate, particularly from Hezbollah, which is committed to its alliance with him based on a six-year experience that has not witnessed any troubling blemish between the two parties. Bassil views the party as capable of imposing him just as it imposed his uncle before him on everyone, and it is the first and last voter in the presidency, while the priority for the international community is to fill the vacancy in Baabda Palace.
The second strategy is, if his personal endeavors to ascend to the presidency come to a dead end, he seeks to have his allies, led by Hezbollah, grant him a card that allows him to nominate a third presidential candidate, provided that his exclusion from the race is tied to the exclusion of Sleiman Franjieh and Army Commander Joseph Aoun, as he did in 2019 by linking his presence in the government to the presence of Saad Hariri at its helm.
Why the third candidate?
Bassil believes that the arrival of a candidate of his choice, who is not among the hawks of the movement opposing him, to the presidency would enable him to control it with the presence of a large Christian parliamentary bloc tied by a strong alliance with Hezbollah, making that president a hostage to him in the Baabda Palace. Conversely, he considers that Sleiman Franjieh's arrival at the presidency, even with significant guarantees in terms of government formation and official appointments and sway within certain ministries, especially the Ministry of Energy backed by Hezbollah, would mark the beginning of the end of his influence inside state institutions, ministries, security agencies, and municipalities, and the most dangerous within the Christian environment in the north, representing an existential threat to his electoral and political future. He believes that Joseph Aoun's rise to Baabda would narrow the circle of his dominance and control within the palace.
Who is the third candidate?
Bassil has a list of names up his sleeve to maneuver within the plan for the third candidate, proposing various names. These start with those that are unappealing and unacceptable to Hezbollah, such as former minister Ziad Baroud or Lebanon's ambassador to the Vatican, Fred Elias Khazen, and end with one or two candidates behind whom Gebran would hide and be prepared to accept one of them: former energy ministers Cesar Abi Khalil and Nada Boustani, both of whom enjoy Bassil’s complete trust. Having one of them in Baabda Palace would ensure Bassil's continued influence in all presidential details and prevent the targeting of the movement in the new presidency.
A former parliamentary reference expresses significant concern over Hezbollah's position, saying: "We cannot be reassured about the outcome of the party's decision. Gebran remains the party's preferred candidate despite recognizing the difficulty of marketing him domestically. The party seeks to strike a deal with Bassil in exchange for excluding his name from the presidential race to maintain the alliance with him."
He adds: "Rallying around a strong presidential candidate whom the party can be reassured about is in the interest of all parties wishing to close the chapter of the previous presidency with all its excesses. The disintegration of the forces opposing Bassil is a great service to him, and this is something that should be understood both domestically and internationally."
Bassil fights his battle confidently about the results, believing that any president will not pass without his approval. Is this confidence derived from a knowledgeable certainty regarding the party and its secretary-general's decisions, or is it merely an overestimation of power that Bassil believes he alone possesses?
