March 14 Leaders Meet, Fail Again to Reach Electoral Agreement

Two months ahead of the parliamentary forthcoming elections, the March 14 bloc seems to be always undecided and perplexed, unable to reach final agreement on the distribution of parliamentary seats all over Lebanon...

Thus, another attempt to resolve the internal conflicts within the mentioned bloc and finalize the electoral tickets has failed on Thursday, postponing again the announcement of electoral lists until a "miraculous" consensus could be reached.

Indeed, a quartet meeting joined on Thursday night the four top leaders of the March 14 coalition: the head of the Future movement MP Saad Hariri, the head of the Democratic Gathering MP Walid Jumblatt, the head of the Phalange party former President Amin Gemayel and the Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea.

According to Lebanese daily As-Safir, the four leaders did not reach a final agreement on the names of several possible candidates during Thursday's meeting.

As-Safir said Jumblat threw Aley's Orthodox seat ball into the court of Gemayel, who is nominating Fadi Habr while Hariri is insisting on Antoine Andraos.
Differences between Gemayel and Geagea also remained over electoral choices in Batroun, Kesrouan and Zahle, according to the Lebanese daily.
The four top March 14 figures, however, agreed to back George Adwan's candidacy on the Shouf list rather than Ghattas Khoury.

Meanwhile, Lebanese daily An-Nahar said that several sticking points were solved ahead of the meeting through talks and visits among March 14 figures, including a meeting away from the spotlight between Gemayel and Jumblat Wednesday night.