Lebanon’s PSP, FPM Dig up War Past in Heated Dispute

Arab World

January 24th, 11:12am

Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat

PSP leader Walid Jumblatt receives then FPM chief Michel Aoun at his Clemenceau residence in 2014. (NNA file photo)

A dispute resurged between Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), over recent statements by former MP and PSP leader Walid Jumblatt, in which he lashed out at President Michel Aoun, saying that his son-in-law, former minister Gebran Bassil was seeking to control the government. Jumblatt said Bassil wanted to have the “vetoing third” in the new government, to be able to tighten his grip on power. He also spoke of “military black rooms that control the judiciary and attack the army commander.” Bassil’s FPM slammed “the low level of political rhetoric among some of those with dark intentions and malevolent actions, by repeatedly talking about the age of the president of the republic, in contradiction to moral values, or by trying to drive a wedge between the FPM and the Lebanese army.” Recalling the 1975-90 civil war, the FPM said in a statement: “It is political profanity when we are given lessons in patriotism by those who have killed, kidnapped, attacked the army and seized its equipment and barracks, and established their own sanctuary, rejecting state security.” The statement added: “The system that struck the legitimacy, seized the country’s resources, and established for 15 years a corrupt rule that led to the collapse of the state, is rejecting the values that President Aoun represents, the state’s legitimacy he embodies and the auditing and accountability he insists on implementing.” In response, PSP MP Bilal Abdallah criticized those he called “the horns of decadent replies,” writing on Twitter: “An owl, no matter how loud its voice, will not become an eagle, and a cat, no matter how sharp its claws, will not become a tiger…” PSP Secretary Zafer Nasser, attacked those who “falsified history and caused calamities, woe and oppression… while trying to prove their loyalty to the decision-maker in (the FPM), and almost suffocated with their anger, falling victim to their own evil...”

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2761711/lebanon%E2%80%99s-psp-fpm-dig-war-past-heated-dispute