Michel Sleiman "...No achievements & no stand..."

Via friday-Lunch-Club

'Bland-Sleiman & predecessor, feisty-nonconformist Lahoud'

Mideastwire's translation of Al Akhbar's piece/ here

“Today, President Michel Suleiman completes his 25th month in Baabda. Two years has passed (he was elected on May 25, 2008) with the president being unable to benefit from the moral momentum with which presidents kick off their terms… Today, at the end of the first two years of Suleiman’s term, some of the president’s consultants can speak for hours about the so-called “role of the president in reconciling the Syrian and French System,” and making a “rapprochement between the Syrian and American systems.” However, these same consultants will find nothing to say concerning the steps that the President launched in order to “involve the youth in finding solutions” as he had pledged in his oath. These consultants will use the smartest tricks that they learned in military school in order to change the subject if asked about the last (or the first) proposal offered by the president regarding the “acknowledgment of emigrants’ rights” as he had pledged in his oath.

“Away from this oath, the consultants will be incapable of pointing out a single national achievement (besides Amchit) that the president or the five ministers who represent him have accomplished (the fact that Interior Minister Ziad Baroud had organized the parliamentary and municipal elections on time is a duty of his rather than an achievement; and finding a solution to the traffic problem is the least of achievements). Wasn’t the joy of the people at Suleiman’s appointment to Baabda a large one? Maybe it was, but the president, unfortunately, did not even take it upon himself to try. Indeed, this policy of no achievements coupled with the strategy of no stand, is making the presidency lose its tone as well as transforming the [post] into one with no stature…”

Posted by G, Z, or B at 10:13 AM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian