The speech of Sheikh Charles Chidiac on the occasion
of presenting his candidacy for the presidency of theLebanese Republic

Friday 14/ 9/ 2007
 

A holy Ramadan for all of you, may god return it upon you and all the Lebanese denominations with well-being, prosperity and blessings.

We extend a warm welcome to you on this occasion… the occasion of announcing my candidacy for the presidency of the Lebanese Republic as a candidate who shall engage the state in the service of the people and whose president shall be at the forefront of those servants.
Through the presentation of this candidacy I would like to release my plan or program for salvation, based on an unconventional concept « the philosophy of positive government » in order to retrieve the country from the present crisis. This plan is built, in its initial postulates, on the PHILOSOPHY OF POSITIVE RULE and the search for the weak points in the public administration that led to the widening of the divide between the citizen and the state since independence, and devise quick solutions to such divide….
This divide which accumulated over the past years rendered the state tantamount to a sword drawn at the citizen, by means of laws and measures unfavourable for his political, social, educational and environmental rights. It was the reason for the retraction of the allegiance of this citizen to the state and his reversion to his sect in his quest for security and economic and social safeguard.
What we want and we strive for in this context is to begin with establishing a historical and real reconciliation between the citizen and the state which considers that the latter encompasses all the constituents of the Lebanese society…. The just state, the state of law and institutions, not the state of patronage and favouritism, of corruption and corrupting influences… and, in return, the citizen realizes then that it is in his interest to bring his support to this state which safeguards his rights and interests especially when he finds out that it has become a state of justice and transparency.
Today we stand before a deep and severe national divide that the country is passing through in addition to hazards of a malicious confessional and sectarian unrest threatening the country with great evil the most probable of which is general chaos and internal strife,a Strife that is fomenting daily within all the ranks of a united people, blown up by opportunists and self-seekers
internally, regionally and internationally of which our people are aware of since a long time.
In the face of all the aforementioned, it is imperative that we find a solution to avert going to the abyss where the country is being speedily drawn into.This solution lies in going back to the principle of dialogue and agreement on a political settlement between the parties to the struggle, because this mutual lying between the Lebanese about their national unity and brotherhood have ceased to be of any use to them. Therefore we must heed the initiative of his excellency Mr. Nabih Berry, speaker of the house, in all true earnestness, in order to arrive throuh it and devise a satisfactory program to be adopted by a presidential candidate that would unify the various parties to the conflict and move the country toward revival on the fronts of security, coexistence, economy and political stability. I would like here to suggest to the 14th of March to decide on one, two or three candidates and present their programs to speaker Berry asking him to present them to the 8th of March, because speaker Berry is the faithful intermediary and the guarantee between the parties to the dispute who strives always to find a suitable solution. On our part we consider speaker Berry an intermediary and not a party and all the others have to view him as such, and the 14th of March should interact with him in an unequivocal manner and negociate with him in the search for a « SALVAGING CANDIDATE. »
It is time for Lebanon to move from being run by « so called  persons and dignitaries » of the state to the following of  PRODRAMS and the  RULE of law. May god have mercy on the soul of sheikh Tannous Chidiac, my great grandfather, who recorded the ancient history of Lebanon in a book he called « Tales of the Notables of Mount Lebanon (1848) ». At this time and place, we have to find a president who can make a fresh start for governance, reformation and state building. The local and regional power factors which caused the assassination of the thinker Kamal Bey Jumblatt as well as Tony Frangieh, Bashir Gemayel, Rene Moawad, Dany Chamoun, president Rashid Karameh and the nationalist newspaper editor Gibran Tueini, are still there. Here I would like to ask the sons and friends of those leaders : Do you want us all to die on the cross of corruption as did your fathers and your political colleagues along with hundreds of thousands of innocent young persons during our civil war ? Is assassination a means for settling political accounts, or should calm and sincere institutional dialogue become the way of our future homeland ? The people are not in favour of keeping the mentalities of the past because they are seeking to achieve a new concept in stability and the sincerity of a state toward its citizens …The people demand my presidential program because it shall save Lebanon politically and lead to financial and economic prosperity.
For all these reasons I proclaim my candidacy on the basis of a new and modern program that would eradicate the chaos that has infected the country since the first day of its independence, in order to build a modern state whose foundations were set for us by my professors, the great thinkers in political science and history such as : Dr. Marouan Iskandar – Dr. Bashir Al Aridi – Dr. Arnold Toynbee- Dr. Youssef Ibish- Dr. Zein Zein- Dr. Nabih Fares- Dr. Kamal Salibi- Dr. Samir Makdessi- Dr. Malcolm Kerr.
The sectarian, political and confessional divides go too far in shattering this country, contrary to the allegations of the heads of political parties and religious communities about the aversion of civil war, for they have brought the country to this edge of economic breakdown and the Lebanese citizen does live this war and feels its manifestations everywhere on the ground. In order to get out of this crisis we should renounce our old methods based on balancing the sectarian and political interests with regard to public matters, and veer towards establishing the philosophy of POSITIVE GOVERNANCE and eradicate any power vacuum by transforming it into a PRACTICAL CO-EXISTENCE between the state and the citizen on a basis of reciprocal rights and obligations.
From my position as a candidate to the presidency of the Republic I propose a new way of governance which I present to the Lebanese, this view in the relationships is based on MODERN POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY. It is in short the participation of the citizen with the state and his support thereof instead of the partnership of the leaderships in imposing conditions on the citizen, belittling him and transforming him into an enemy of the state, and then divide the country’s wealth between themselves in the name of confessionalism.
Yesterday the army achieved victory over the Fath-Al –Islam and the citizen responded by extending his thanks for the army, because the army paid a service to the citizen, where it fulfilled its obligations. In general the state does not do its duty by the Lebanese citizen, and that is true of most of the different administrations, that is why the citizen challenges the state every day he gets out of his home, when he faces the state’s chaos in traffic and in the enforcement of the laws pertaining to public services- Here the citizen takes his revenge on the state by throwing garbage from windows and cars and fills the streets of Lebanon, its beaches and mountains with tons of garbage.

What can we do :
What we should do is to create a new partnership in the government between the citizen and the state where the former shall feel that the state is his father, not his enemy. Then and only then, shall the country be unified on the basis of trust and peaceful coexistence.
The people demand a new leadership for a new age, a leadership that would execute this new vision with regard to the internal policy, and then establish a new Lebanese policy vis a vis its relationships with sister SYRIA, the DIASPORA, the MIDDLE EASTERN region and the world.
But we, in the present proposition, has been the subject of study on the basis of the common interests between Syria and Lebanon, between the West and Lebanon, between the Middle Eastern countries and Lebanon and between the world and Lebanon.
It is nobody’s interest that Lebanon be destroyed anew, because the destruction of Lebanon this time shall have far-reaching repercussions affecting the interests of all the enemies and friends of Lebanon wherever they might be, because the Lebanese people have had more than enough of Israel’s conspiracies against them, as well as from the behaviour of their politicians through their recourse to the foreigner for support to their internal policies. We mention for instance the dominance of AIPAC over the American policy and the insistance on the destruction of the Lebanese economy and the common life inside the Lebanese society.
Here we say to Israel, exactly as we say to every state or party which built its convictions on religious and confessional dogma, that their life is short because countries cannot  be built on religious dogmas but on the bases of laws and institutions ( where is the Ottoman empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire etc…)
That is why Israel’s life is short like the life of other Theocracies which separate between, its citizens and between the sons of its own nation, Israel will eventually have a civil war.
The adherence to civil peace is the corner-stone for the permanence of Lebanon. Such peace could be preserved only by going back to rational dialogue, building the public institutions, abiding by the Taef agreement and the resolutions of the international legitimacy, and enacting a modern and just electoral law based on the single precinct that can block the effect of the present law that allows election of large blocks of deputies belonging to a single confessional movement thus depriving the smaller parties and independent individuals from any chance of getting elected and organizing political parties with economic and social programs.
The reunification of the country and its people and the concentration on tackling the seeds of internal disputes lies in building a modern state and in electing an able president possessing an overall salvaging political, economic and developmental program…. A president not immersed in corruption, with strong convictions and a courage in performing his Duties.
Lebanon, who liberated its occupied land on the 25th of March 2000, and is in the process of liberating the Shebaa’ farms and the hills of Kafarshouba, asserts its continuing commitment to the question of the Arab- Israeli conflict as long as such commitment is not in contradiction with Lebanese sovereignty, the Taef agreement and Lebanons’ Arab commitments, until the liberation of the land from Israeli occupation as was decided by the two summits in 2002 and 2007.
What is required is for Lebanon to develop a defensive plan financed by its own money obtained through our economic program, a plan designed to protect our boundaries and our interests in the face of the Israeli enemy and to make sure not to use the scope of our sovereignty for agression against Syria.

Relationship with Syria :
The establishment of true and healthy Lebanese Syrian relations calls for a revision of the previous experiences in order to draw the necessary lessons and avoid the mistakes, faults and gaps, in a manner that leads to the revival of these relations on clear bases of cooperation and equality and the translation of the distinguished relations into cooperation in facing the common challenges, and complete reciprocal respect for the sovereignty of the two states and their independence on the basis of refusing any form of tutelage.
- The distinguished relations between Lebanon and Syria should not contradict the criteria of the relations prevailing between states within the scope of international law.
- The conservation of Lebanese sovereignty and the steady performance of the state institutions in Lebanon constitute a warranty to good relations between Lebanon and Syria and to the security and interests of the two countries.
- Developping the economic relations between the two countries by way of building big touristic projects to create 500,000 jobs for Lebanon and 500,000 jobs for Syria in the space of two years and then aim at five million tourists yielding 50 billion dollars yearly,within six years.
- It is necessary to stress for the last time our refusal for settlement of the Palestinians in Lebanon and on the creation of the « Bush promised palestinian state in 2005 », and for the world communitythrough the U.N.to negotiate with the palestinian leaderships an agreement offering generous compensations to them or hold on to resolution 194 granting the right of return to the Palestinians. That is because the settlement of Palestinians in Lebanon is an Israeli project aiming at blowing up the Arab societies from within, and at thwarting any just solution to the palestinian question which is the quintessence of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the main reason for the violence against the western countries.


The Lebanese diaspora :
There is a need to unify the Lebanese immigrants around Lebanon its values and national rights. This requires the facilitation of the procedure to give the persons of Lebanese descent the lebanese nationality and to facilitate their registration as Lebanese citizens, consolidate our relations with them and grant them incentives for investing in Lebanon. In addition we should invite them to participate in public life and grant them the right to vote from their place of residence. This is far better than granting the lebanese nationality to non-lebanese and to the non-deserving as happened in 1994, which imposes on us the obligation to retract nationality from those to whom it was unjustly granted especially the tens of thousands of Palestinians, because we consider this act as a camouflage settlement, and limit nationality grants to those who deserve them from among the residents presently on lebanese soil.
The persons of lebanese descent and the emigrants who are sixteen million strong constitute for Lebanon a huge reservoir of human and economic capabilities which should be exploited in order to overcome the economic problems. Gaining the confidence of persons of lebanese descent and the emigrants and buttressing their relations with their mother country necessitates the reorganization of the ministry of foreign affairs by modifying its cadre and establishing seven positions of deputy foreign minister :
1- Deputy foreign minister responsible for the Arab countries
2- Deputy foreign minister responsible for Europe and Russia
3- Deputy foreign minister responsible for North America
4- Deputy foreign minister responsible for Central America
5- Deputy foreign minister responsible for South America
6- Deputy foreign minister responsible for South-East Asia, Australia and New-Zeeland
7- Deputy foreign minister responsible for Africa
The main functions of the deputy foreign ministers would be as follows :
1- A demographic survey of the lebanese diaspora
2- Establishment of social and cultural links with the diaspora
3- Establishment of an economic unit to work with the deputy foreign ministers for introducing to the lebanese investors and traders working outside Lebanon, the LAW of THE OFF-SHORE COMPAGNIES IN LEBANON, and the benefits derived from our BANK SECRECY LAWS, wherby the income of an attorney in Lebanon would not be less than 100,000 dollars per year from representing the owners of these offshore companies.
4- Strengthening the relationships with the emigrants and stressing their recquirement for their lebanese nationality
5- Grant them equal rights and obligations and give them the opportunity to share in the political, social and economic life of Lebanon.
6- Establish a monthly program by way of video-conferencing with cities around the world where important emigrants live, through coordination with the president of the republic and the diaspora leaders and airing it on lebanese televisions for acquainting the lebanese in the mother country with the strength of the emigrants in their adopted countries and inciting the emigrants to support the big projects in Lebanon
The state which is necessarily based on coexistence cannot but be a secular non confessional state giving rights to its citizens on the basis of equality and justice where  diversity becomes a source of strength instead of Struggle.. We want a state that does not find itself in a state of strife with its citizens, and does not take decisions that threaten the existence of the sects and their free existence or bring harm to their will of living together.
The present crisis has uncovered the impass to which the parties to the conflict have arrived i.e. the forces of 14th of March and 8th of March and their failure to find any solution to the ailments of the country and its people on the political, economic and sociological levels while the third force, headed by president Selim Hoss, has formed a national comprehensive frame of which i was a founding Member, more advanced than the existing political frameworks. The third force is characterized by middle of the way moderate conventional directives which president Hoss expressed in his attitudes and recommandations which aim at supporting moderation and agreement, shunning violence, consulting constitutional vehicles and refusing the logic of the street. The events proved the truthfulness of the trend of the third force concerning its approach for getting out of the present crisis, and solving our internal problems encluding the arms of Hezbollah in a peaceful way and only through dialogue.
Because of such deep divides and because of the failure of the present political frameworks and conventional leaderships, I decided to present my candidacy to the presidency of the Republic, being, firstly, from outside these conventional alignments and having a lot of experience in leadership since my school days as well as through my relations on many fronts, and through my kinship and my collaboration with most of the heroes of the independence, in addition to my specialization in POLITICAL SCIENCE and ECONOMICS, and also in the execution of many big projects all around the world. All of this provides me with the capacity of piloting the lebanese ship to a safe haven and to build the modern state of law and institutions and to find solutions for the economic and living problems. In addition to all this, our conception of the presidential role… is that the president should be an example in honesty and in devising solutions to the problems of traffic, environment, health, education and administrative services, seeking humility in the service of the people and the nation and desisting from the use of ancient Ottoman customs of glorification and exaltation. Glory is in labour and service not in chairs and positions.. Here the president participates with the citizen in realizing these modern initiatives so that Lebanon will become once more the pearl of the East and a real center for tourism, professional and technical services and investments matching in this field the shores of Europe or Miami or Copacabana in Brazil… creating a base for 5 million tourists in 6 years and increasing income from agriculture, industry and services provided by lebanese highly experienced labour, to 50 billion dollars per year for Lebanon and Syria, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs insuring an income of 15,000 dollars per citizen per year within a few years time.

This is my presidential program on the basis of which I seek your confidence and the confidence of your representatives asking the almighty God to grant our dear country the stability and the serenity which will enable us, with his permission, to execute this program.



Long live Lebanon
Sheikh Charles Camille Chidiac
President of the Republican Reform Party