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The Lebanese MPs who voted for Samir Geagea to be president. (Photo: Al-Akhbar)
Updated at 2:15 pm: Lebanese parliamentarians voted on Wednesday in the highly anticipated first round of presidential elections, with the majority of votes split between Samir Geagea and blank ballots in protest of his candidacy.
The first count of the ballots gave 52 blank votes, 48 votes for Geagea and 16 for Henri Helou.
Seven votes nominating people who were allegedly killed by Geagea were declared void. The names included Dany and Tareq Chamoun and Jihane Frangieh.No candidate managed to obtain 86 votes, a quorum necessary to be elected in this session. A second vote is expected to take place on April 30. In the next session, a candidate will only need to secure 50 percent of votes, meaning 65, to win the presidency.
The elections have heightened the rivalry between the March 8 and March 14 coalitions, as March 8 strongly opposed the candidacy of March 14-backed Geagea, who spent 11 years in prison for crimes committed during the civil war.In a press conference after the vote, Geagea pushed aside questions about his controversial status as a candidate.
Referring to the votes nominating deceased opponents and their family members, Geagea said he "was hoping that the other camp would have resorted to honorable means to express its disdain for the elections.”
With no strong contender for the post, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement Michel Aoun has been considered as a potential consensus candidate for the second round. Kataeb party leader Amin Gemayel, who received one vote on Wednesday, officially declared his candidacy for the second round.
"People have vivid memories and have demonstrated a great deal of aggravation regarding Geagea's candidacy for the Presidential post," the Lebanese National News Agency quotes Aoun as saying.
Three people had declared their candidacy prior to the vote: Geagea of the Lebanese Forces, Helou of the Progressive Socialist Party and independent candidate Nadine Moussa, who is the first woman to present herself in presidential elections in Lebanon. She did not receive any votes.
Moussa slammed Wednesday's elections, calling it a "tragic farce."
"I feel sorry for Lebanese democracy," she toldAl-Akhbar, saying that her program had not been distributed to the MPs despite her official request, and that the request by an MP for candidates to present their programs ahead of the vote had been swept aside. She added that she had submitted a formal request to speak in front of Parliament ahead of the next round.
Moussa said "total reform" was necessary in Lebanese politics, calling the system a "masked monarchy" and a "dictatorship of sectarian leaders."
Presidents in Lebanon are chosen through a parliamentary and cabinet vote as opposed to a general election.
The parliamentary session began at 12:10 pm with 124 MPs present out of 128. The absent MPs were independent Elie Aoun, March 14's Oqab Saqr, Khaled Daher, and Future Movement leader Saad Hariri.
The vote started at 12:15 pm, with an ballot box passed on from MP to MP, and ended at 12:23 pm. The votes were then read one by one.
Incumbent president Michel Suleiman, who has been in office since 2008, has repeatedly rejected the notion of an extension of his term.
To be updated.
(Al-Akhbar)
The disgraceful MPs
By: Ibrahim al-Amin
This is not about democracy because justice is not up for a vote. It is not a political issue either because no polity should coexist with murderers at the helm.
Whatever murderers build is ultimately a mirage, as we see daily.
It is not a question of the right to choose either. There is no right that allows voting for murderers. It is a question of human rights and the sacred right to life, the right to reject murder, and the right to reject murderers. It is a question of the victim’s right not to be killed again every day!
Amnesty, regardless of its form, cannot undo a heinous, odious, and criminal act. For there can be neither apology nor atonement for murder, at least not without penance. But amnesty gives the killer a chance to punish himself, and his punishment at the very least must include reclusion and retreat, in lieu of incarceration.
Today, the Lebanese are living through a precedent where a killer is being granted the chance to repeat his crime rather than simply reenact it. The Lebanese are watching a despicable scene in which the killer is granted the right to become his victims’ spokesman.
Today, people are seeing how a sample of the representatives they have elected stand on the cusp of a new phase of bloody madness, with nothing but the word “disgrace” etched on their foreheads.
Indeed, those whose hearts and minds lead them to forcibly or voluntarily endorse the installation of a murderer as president, are the embodiment of disgrace. Those who vote for a killer are cadavers in human forms. They are nameless entities, and mere pliant tools without a voice of their own. That voice will not be heard if it ever demands justice for their slain leaders, or if they ask about a future or a life!
You, who are lining up on the list of shame; you, who are supposedly the nation’s representatives as you vote for the murderer of some of the finest men of this nation; you, who have become nothing more than partners in a crime that has become too rampant: You are nothing but an extension of the fire that devoured and continues to devour your compatriots.
The person you are envisioning as president has no other name, title, capacity, or position than this: a killer.
You represent the disgrace that you told us repeatedly could only be washed away with blood. You are the heirs of killers and butchers, because this is the only explanation for why you have accepted to be marred by this disgrace: one by one, name after name, and face after face.
In days like these, Lebanon misses wise and prudent leaders like Rashid Karami, the man Geagea was convicted of killing. But some of our disgraceful MPs will make many Lebanese nostalgic for the poet who once said: “A country is where one has a home to miss and a Habib [Shartouni]* -- to wash away all this shame!”
*Habib Shartouni was the man behind the assassination of former leader of the Lebanese Forces, Bachir Gemayel.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
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هي ليست مسألة ديموقراطية. فلا ديموقراطية مع العدالة. وليست مسألة سياسية. فلا سلطة تعيش مع قاتل. وما بناه قتلة كان سراباً
ها نحن نلحق به كل يوم!
هي ليست مسألة الحق في الاختيار. ليس من حق يسمح باختيار الموت أو صانعه. هي مسألة الإنسان وحقه المقدس في الحياة، وحقه في رفض القتل وفي رفض القاتل. هي مسألة حق المقتول في التوقف عن قتله كل صباح!
والعفو، أي عفو، لا يلغي الفعل القبيح. الفعل القميء. الفعل الأسود.
ولا اعتذار عن القتل، وليس من فعل ندامة يمكن القبول به، إن لم يقترن بمحاسبة الذات. وفرصة القاتل مع العفو، أن يترك له معاقبة
نفسه. وهو عقاب، ليس فيه أقل من الاختباء، والانزواء، بدل عقاب العزل!
اليوم، يشهد اللبنانيون على سابقة في منح القاتل حق تكرار فعلته، لا حق تمثيل جريمته، وعلى مشهدية تمثل الحقارة، بأن يمنح قاتل حق التحدث باسم ضحاياه.
يشهد اللبنانيون على سابقة في منح القاتل حق تكرار فعلته وحق التحدث باسم ضحاياه
اليوم، يختبر الناس عيّنة من الذين اختاروهم يقفون على عتبة مرحلة جديدة من الجنون الدموي. وهم يتحسسون جباههم، مكتوباً عليها العار، العار، وليس أي شيء آخر غير العار!
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إنّ من يقوده قلبه، وعقله، غصباً أو طوعاً، لأن يقبل بتنصيب قاتل فوق رؤوس أهله، هو تجسيد لمعنى العار!
وإنّ من يسمي اليوم قاتلاً رئيساً للجمهورية، هو جيفة على هيئة إنسان. هو شيء لا اسم له، ولا صفة. هو ليس أكثر من أداة بلا صوت. ولن يسمع صوتها، إن نادت، بحقوق أهلها الراحلين قتلاً، ولن يسمع لها صوت إن سألت عن مستقبل أو حياة!
من تعتقدون، أيها المجتمعون في لائحة العار، أيها الذين تحملون اسم نواب الأمة، وتختارون قاتل نبلاء من هذه الأمة، لستم سوى شركاء في الجريمة المتمادية. ولستم سوى بقية الحريق الذي التهم أطفالكم وأبناءكم ولا يزال!
ليس لمن تفكرون فيه رئيساً من اسم أو صفة أو وظيفة إلا اسم واحد: إنه القاتل!
أنتم تمثلون العار الذي تقولون لنا إنه لا يغسل بغير الدماء. أنتم ورثة قتلة، وسفاحون، حتى تقبلوا بهذا العار يلفكم واحداً واحداً، واسماً خلف اسم، وصورة فوق صورة!
في هذه الأيام، يشتاق لبنان إلى رشيد راشد، لكن نواب العار سيجعلون لبنانيين كثراً يترحّمون على شاعر قال: وما بلدُ الإنسان إلا الذي له به سكنٌ يشتاقه... وحبيبُ، يغسل ببسمته كل هذا العار!