gulfnews.com

Beirut: The founder of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the
82-year-old former Lebanese Commander of the Lebanese Army General
Michel Aoun, confronted a defining challenge as the party he created in
2005 expelled three leading members over policy differences.

Media
reports confirmed that a senior FPM official sitting on the party’s
disciplinary committee called Ziad Abs, Naim Aoun and Antoine Nasrallah
to inform them of their expulsions, after it determined that all three
tarnished the group’s reputation.

In remarks made to New [Al
Jadeed] Television, Abs, a key FPM official in Beirut’s Ashrafieh area
corroborated that he had been expelled from the FPM along with Naim Aoun
and Antoine Nasrallah. Previously, Abs ran into an open confrontation
with the FPM’s current president, Minister of Foreign Affairs Jibran
Bassil (who happens to also be General Michel Aoun’s son-in-law), as he
expressed a wish to run for party office.

Naim Aoun, a nephew of
the founder, and the other two FPM founding members were called before
an FPM disciplinary tribunal because they criticised Bassil during a
television interview on July 16.

Nasrallah, who fought alongside
General Aoun against the Syrians during the latter’s three-decades long
occupation of the country, was also reprimanded for publishing a
scathing article that Jibran Bassil did not approve of. All three
refused to appear before the FPM disciplinary tribunal but spoke openly
on television against what they alleged were undemocratic practices.

The latest media appearances apparently tipped the balance and led to
the expulsions, especially after Naim Aoun confirmed that he was
expelled because of his Wednesday evening television appearance on the
MTV ‘Bi-Mawdu‘iyyah’ [Objectively] programme with Walid Abboud. Naim
Aoun did not mince his words and lambasted the FPM even if Abboud,
playing the ‘Devil’s Advocate’ repeatedly accused Naim Aoun of skirting
the issues.

The FPM had previously accused the three rebels of
“raising the FPM’s crises in the media”, according to a report published
in the Al Nahar newspaper, and the latest transgression was clearly not
tolerated.

When Abs, Aoun and Nasrallah informed the FPM
disciplinary committee a few days ago that they would not attend their
so-called ‘trial’ because they had concluded that they “did not violate
the movement’s bylaws as the leadership has claimed”, Bassil gave
instructions to expel the three.

Unconfirmed media reports, which
have been circulated since May 2016, hinted that the FPM intended to
purge the party of those who refused to accept Bassil. At least 20
leading members, including Abs, were apparently targeted from the
get-go.

Importantly, the latest expulsions occurred two days
before the scheduled FPM ‘internal party elections’ on Sunday to select
candidates who will run for parliamentary elections in 2017. Critics
remained skeptical about the envisaged process, as at least 10
contenders (out of 83) were forced to withdraw because they did not meet
the party’s criteria (to be a card-carrying member for at least two
years, have a college degree, and be over 30 years of age), even if the
Lebanese constitution does not require a college degree for eligibility
for any citizen to run for office.

In reality, vetted candidates
were expected to back Bassil first and foremost, though it was unclear
whether any of the 73 would be chosen by acclamation like the party
president was.