Berri: 'Package Deal' is My Favorite Candidate

Speaker Nabih Berri has announced that he would “communicate” with al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri “in the coming hours,” while ruling out the possibility of electing a president before the parties agree on a so-called “package deal.”

“There is nothing new in the presidential file and I will communicate with Hariri in the coming hours,” Berri's visitors quoted him as saying in remarks published Monday.

As for calls by some parties for Hizbullah to press the speaker to endorse Free Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel Aoun for the presidency “before asking Hariri to do so,” Berri noted that his “favorite candidate” would be “an agreement over a package deal involving the presidency, the government and the electoral law.”

“If we don't agree on this package deal, especially on the electoral law, we would be crucifying any elected president,” the speaker added.

Hariri returned to Beirut Saturday from a several-week foreign trip during which he shuttled between Europe and Saudi Arabia.

Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum.

Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah.

Hariri's move prompted Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea to endorse the nomination of Aoun, his long-time Christian rival, after months of political rapprochement talks between their two parties.

The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.