During his visit to Lebanon, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian held a meeting with “the political forces of change” (according to his expression):
- new formations: the Taqaddom (Progress) movement, the National Coalition, Beirut Madinati and the “Massirat Watan” organization;
- the old parties: the Kataëb party (represented by the former deputy Samy Gemayel) and the Lebanese National Bloc; and
- former deputies: Michel Moawad, Neemat Frem and Paula Yaacoubian.
In the polls, these forces fail to break through. Moreover, many members of the protest movement born on October 17, 2019 have contested their representativeness. Indeed, it is the party of the Lebanese Forces (FL) which in the polls has gained points in the Christian street due to the loss of popularity of the Free Patriotic Current (CPL) and the current failure – despite various initiatives. and attempts – by members of the protest movement to regroup and organize themselves in order to have real influence in the next legislative elections.
However, the record of deputies and ministers of the LF party is not good. Between 2016 and 2019, their ministers (as well as those of the Amal movement and the Progressive Socialist Party) were even accused of obstructing. In Parliament, the parliamentary bloc of this party has the chairmanship of the parliamentary committee on Administration and Justice. Indeed, the lawyer Georges Adwane chairs it. He is vice-president of the Lebanese Forces (FL) party and deputy for Chouf. Since 2018, this committee has brought together the following deputies:
- Georges Adwane and Georges Okaïs, members of the parliamentary bloc of Samir Geagea’s FL party;
- Samir Jisr and Hadi Hobeiche, members of the Future Current parliamentary bloc of Prime Minister designate Saad Hariri and former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora;
- Ibrahim Azar, Ali Khreiss, Ghazi Zeaïter and Hani Kobeissi, members of the parliamentary bloc of the Amal movement of the Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri;
- Georges Atallah and Ziad Assouad, members of the CPL parliamentary bloc founded by the President of the Republic Michel Aoun and led by the deputy Gébran Bassil;
- Ibrahim Moussawi, member of the Hezbollah parliamentary bloc;
- Bilal Abdallah, member of the parliamentary bloc of the Progressive Socialist Party of former Minister Walid Joumblatt;
- Albert Mansour, member of the parliamentary bloc of the Syrian Social-National Party; and
- Moustapha Husseini who was a candidate on the list of the former deputy Fares Souhaid and the Kataëb party.
Nawaf Moussaoui of Hezbollah, Nadim Gemayel of the Kataëb party and Paula Yaacoubian were also members of this committee but have resigned their parliamentary mandates in recent years.
For three years, this commission has not drafted a law on the independence of the judiciary. Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najm asked Georges Adwan to speed up the drafting of the law on the independence of the judiciary demanded by a majority of Lebanese.
Georges Adwan is also a member of what the Lebanese commonly call the “banking party” since he holds the official speech of this “party”: he declared on April 3, 2021 to the MTV television channel that bank deposits “Have not disappeared”, that the money will come back and that the free banking system will be maintained. Bank deposits in dollars are however fictitious as recognized by Riad Salamé the governor of the Bank of Lebanon (BDL) in an interview with Bassam Abou Zeid on the Saudi television channel Al-Hadath on December 1, 2020. And, the value of the pound – pegged to the dollar since 1997 – has collapsed. The Association of Banks of Lebanon (ABL) even imposed illegally (because outside the legislative framework) restrictions on bank deposits in dollars. Saying that the money will come back echoes the meaningless remarks made at MTV on July 24, 2020 by CPL deputy Ibrahim Kanaan, chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee, also a member of the banking party for personal ambitions (he aims the Presidency of the Republic), which declared that it wanted to “reconstitute the deposits”. Finally, declaring that the free banking system will be maintained is part of the language of the banking party to make it appear that all those who are opposed to the bancocracy are dreadful leftists. The Lebanese are in fact suffering a devaluation of the Lebanese pound and a “lirification” of their deposits and therefore social downgrading and loss of purchasing power due to the refusal of the banking party to any restructuring of the public and private banking sector ( that is to say of the Central Bank and banks) provided for in the plan of the government supported by the President of the Republic in order to protect depositors and which was blocked by the Parliamentary Committee on Finance and Budget as well that by the President and the Vice-President of the Parliament with the support of the party of the banks to which belongs the club of the former Prime Ministers (Najib Mikati, Fouad Siniora, Tammam Salam and Saad Hariri) and Walid Joumblatt.
It is therefore important that the Lebanese in general and Christians in particular are not deceived.
