MP Jumblatt warns against March 8 victory

The head of the Lebanese Progressive Socialist Party and the National Struggle Front, Walid Jumblatt has warned against an electoral victory for the ruling March 8 coalition led by Prime Minister Najib Mikati. Jumblatt’s criticism of Hezbollah and the March 8 coalition extended to the government’s approval last week of a controversial draft electoral law based on a system of proportional representation. The draft law has come under fire by Jumblatt, March 14 politicians and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who said that the proportionality law was directed against the majority of the Lebanese, vowing to block its endorsement in Parliament. Hariri said the draft electoral law was made to serve Hezbollah and its March 8 allies in the 2013 elections. “If the entire March 8 team or some of it wins [the elections] ... I don’t think there will be a place for a middle-of-the-road plurality or diversity, or a room for a central decision on war and peace for Lebanon outside the Iranian and the remaining Syrian axis,” Jumblatt said. Likewise, Jumblatt said if the opposition March 14 coalition won next year’s elections, there would be “no room for hope and joy to benefit from the huge energies of the Lebanese in diaspora.” “We will remain in this state of tension and ongoing political war in the interior,” he said, referring to deep political differences between the March 8 and March 14 parties over Hezbollah’s arms and the 17-month uprising in Syria among other issues. He renewed his call for an inter-Lebanese dialogue under “one state, an independent president, an independent Army and an independent judiciary.” Jumblatt, an outspoken critic of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, warned of dire consequences if the pro-Assad Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance won next year’s parliamentary elections. The Chouf lawmaker argued that a March 8 victory in the 2013 elections would do away with the state of law, an independent president, an independent army and an independent judiciary. “Under the slogan of the ‘Army, people and resistance,’ this vague partnership cannot continue at the expense of the state, the Army, security, economy and destiny,” Jumblatt said Saturday in a speech during an iftar in the Chouf, Mount Lebanon. The PSP MP attened with his son Taymour, ministers Ghazi Al-Aridi and Alaaeddin Trou, in addition to MPs Marwan Hamada, Mohamed Al-Hajjar, Nema Tema and many leading Christian and Muslim figures, police and army officials, judicial staff and the people of the region. Jumblatt said in a speech at the dinner: “If there is a main achievement of this government, it is the commitment to finance the Special Tribunal for Lebanon investigating the death of Rafiq Hariri and his colleagues, honouring the agreement between Lebanon and the UN. Regardless of the surrounding incidents, which almost overwhelmed the path of the court, justice will be done even. And those who raise suspicions around the decisions of the court, they would better refute argument with argument and proof with proof before this court”. He also blasted what he dubbed “this strange partnership” with Hezbollah which he said could not endure at the expense of the state, the army and security, a move apparently aimed at setting the stage for the Progressive Socialist Party leader to split from the March 8 alliance. Jumblatt’s change of heart over the thorny issue of Hezbollah’s arms could push him to withdraw his three ministers from the government, a move that would eventually lead to the collapse of PM Mikati’s cabinet, which is controlled by Hezbollah and its March 8 allies. In an indirect response to Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, who has said that the state is incapable of leading the resistance, Jumblatt said: “The Lebanese army, both soldiers and officers, does not lack competence and professionalism to gradually accommodate the resistance’s arms according to a plan that takes into account the resistance’s security concerns.” The PSP leader, who is in a loose alliance with Hezbollah and other March 8 allies in Mikati’s government, has repeatedly called for Hezbollah’s weapons to be gradually incorporated into the Lebanese Army. He last week praised President Michel Sleiman who said that the Army should have no partner in defending security and sovereignty. Jumblatt said the state alone should have the right to decide on war and peace and criticised Hezbollah’s self-declared “balance of terror” against Israel. “There is no place except for one state that alone can take the decision on war and peace in defence of Lebanon only,” he said. “Yes to the liberation of the Shebaa Farms and Kfar Shouba hills once the boundary of these areas has been delineated and drawn. No to the logic of liberation to serve other countries or to bargain over Lebanon. With regard to a [military] balance, I don’t encourage the balance of terror outside the state’s framework because it might drag the country into disasters and destruction.” Jumblatt, who strongly supports the anti-Assad uprising, said violence in Syria had surpassed “all imagination” and expressed puzzlement over what he described as an international conspiracy against Syria as an “entity and people.” He continued: “The Arab world and what is called the international community was distracted by one initiative after the other. And I will not comment on the basic failure of Kofi Annan from Rwanda to Bosnia to Iraq and today Syria, but I advise  Al-Akhdar Al-Ibrahimi not to fall in the same trap of an initially failing mission as long as the mentioned alliance insists on settlement with the current regime”.  “One stands amazed and confused before this international conspiracy against the Syrian people. Did the friends of the Syrian people, who organised conferences one after the other, all of them devoid of meaning and trivial, at the forefront of them the US; did they negotiate with the other alliance, the friends of the Syrian regime, all of it or some of it? Are there negotiations to preserve the Israeli security and draw new maps of the region? It is a valid question to ask”. Jumblatt went on to say that if the PSP gained constituents from the March 14 bloc and independents, there would be "hope for diversity, for dialogue and refusing exclusiveness in one country, hope for an independent president and army, judiciary, at least the comfort of a strong country and a national unity government”.