The Hezbollah team responsible for relations with its allies does not seem to have finished its troubles. You have just succeeded in restoring the bonds between Nabih Berri and the duo Michel Aoun Gebran Bassil, or at least getting their commitment to overcome their criticism, and now the differences between them begin again and spread in the media. The Second Lebanon (Al-Zahrani Pictures) The public friction between the Popular Liberation Party and the Amal movement showed that the fire continues to burn under the ashes and that the slightest spark can burn everything. Especially since this visit was preceded by a statement by the Head of State from Bkerke, where he was going to attend the Easter mass, in which he indicated that those obstructing the judiciary today are the same people who paralyzed the government for several weeks. In other words, the Shiite movement, and in particular the Amal movement, especially since Finance Minister Youssef Khalil (close to Nabih Berri) is still refraining from signing the decree forming the General Assembly of the Court of Cassation (responsible for adjudicating the appeals of abstraction against Tariq Bitar to continue his investigations into the explosion that occurred in the port of Beirut). However, Hezbollah has made tremendous efforts to push its two allies, Amal and the Giants Party, to appear on the same list in certain circles and stop the hostilities between them, at least until the elections scheduled for May 15. He even had to hold several meetings with each of them separately, brandishing numbers and invoking the collective interest to persuade them to agree to some kind of truce. Amal and the Labor Party eventually acquiesced to Hezbollah’s insistence, while each retained the possibility of criticizing the other, in the context of election campaigns, in order to be able to mobilize voters. Indeed, after years of squabbling between the two formations, for different pretexts but primarily over what the CPL calls anti-corruption, it has been difficult to convince their respective bases of the need to create what the two camps call “electoral alliances,” just to increase the number of seats on the Joint List. Hezbollah’s councils eventually triumphed, and the two formations found themselves in certain departments on the same list. Opponents of the CPL party did not hesitate to criticize him on this issue, and its leader, Gebran Bassil, clearly raised this issue in one of his electoral speeches, stressing that as soon as the legislative elections are over, every deputy will join his bloc and elect. The alliance will stop there. However, from Hezbollah’s point of view, the general tone of Bassil’s rhetoric was less violent than usual. For his part, the president of the chamber did not mention this question at all in his last speech, and his aides concealed it in one way or another in their recent statements.
Hezbollah can therefore consider itself somewhat complacent, considering that it has succeeded in relatively calming the game between its two allies and, at the same time, in obtaining a respite to devote itself to electoral matters as such. But the rest period did not last long.
Saturday’s attack on opposition candidates on Hezbollah’s Amal List in Sarafand and the political and popular anger it provoked has reignited the conflict with the CPL. Admittedly, Amal condemned the attack in an official press release, and on Wednesday the army arrested the accused of committing the shooting of opposition candidates, but the formation of Nabih Berri remains in question. Also, candidate Hassan Ahmed Khalil, who is known for his severe criticism of the president of the chamber and his camp, relied on this attack to announce, after a meeting with the head of state, his intention to suspend his candidacy for the legislative elections (he could no longer withdraw him due to the expiration of the legal period). The reason for this is the lack of freedom of action for opposition candidates in the Lebanon-South Second constituency, which is the stronghold of the Amal movement and its leader. In a press conference held the next day, he called for “security guarantees for opposition candidates, delegates at the polling stations, and for voters.” The most surprising thing about her statement is that she was made from Baabda. This was considered a sign of escalation between the head of state and his camp on the one hand, and the Speaker of Parliament and his camp on the other. Immediately, Hezbollah mediators were activated to try and limit the damage. Because of the electoral campaigns, the two Hezbollah allies considered that they had a certain leeway to address their constituencies, not because they formed joint lists that they should give up on mobilizing voters. For them, the electoral alliance is one thing, and political issues are another. Moreover, in this delicate period when the CPL considers itself the target of a major internal and external campaign aimed at weakening it, Hezbollah can only understand its ally’s interest in mobilizing voters… while standing ready to intervene in the event of conflict with Amal spiraling out of control.
The Hezbollah team responsible for relations with its allies does not seem to have finished its troubles. You have just succeeded in restoring the bonds between Nabih Berri and the duo Michel Aoun Gebran Bassil, or at least to get their commitment to mitigate their criticism, and now the differences between them begin and spread. ..
