The Kataeb political bureau held its meeting under the chairmanship of party leader MP Samy Gemayel, where urgent issues were discussed, particularly Lebanon's connection to regional battlefields and the expanding vacancy in key positions amid the absence of state leadership.
After deliberation, the political bureau issued the following statement: "The political bureau considers that Hezbollah is exerting maximum pressure on the state and monopolizing its decision-making in a decisive moment, exploiting the war to impose its combat equations and utilizing the vacancy to dictate its conditions in selecting leaders and heads for vital and influential political positions."
It sees that "the government, as represented under this reality, has become negligent in its role required to safeguard the country, its constitution, and institutions by submitting to the rules imposed by Hezbollah and its allies, choosing to participate in wars and linking what it calls battlefields, which exposes Lebanon to aggressions it can do without, costing the Lebanese new losses in lives and property. Then, publicly boasting about compensating them from its private funds without a single official being able to refuse to entrust the affairs of the Lebanese people to entities outside their state, in an unprecedented abandonment of state sovereignty, it would be more appropriate to compensate families from the Southern Fund that was established in their name."
The political bureau also warned against "leaving Lebanon hostage to the ongoing vacancy in essential security positions from general security to internal security, risking the depletion of army leadership in the midst of a military council that is incomplete during this critical time. It considers that the only legal way out is to postpone the retirement of the army commander until a president of the republic is elected."
It affirms that "the continued monopolization of the presidential office will expose Lebanon to impending existential risks, certainly as a result of the emerging regional reality. This requires close follow-up by a fully-qualified state that possesses constitutional legitimacy to lead the upcoming phase."
On the eve of the third visit of the French envoy, the political bureau demands that "Hezbollah" and its political team "abandon their presidential candidate and meet with the opposition to elect a sovereign, unifying president whose election would serve as an entry point to filling all vacant positions and strengthening Lebanon's situation internally by regaining free decision-making and implementing international resolutions, especially 1701, and externally by restoring its international relations."
