Announcement of Candidacy for the Presidency

In the midst of the ongoing political bazaar regarding the presidential election, and in light of the deep divisions within the Lebanese political leaderships in general, and the Maronite in particular, and with the feverish attempts by candidates to please the parties to the conflict in order to satisfy their own opportunistic greed for the top seat in the country, and as mediators seek a colorless, tasteless, odorless compromise candidate to manage the crisis instead of resolving it;

In the absence of exceptional candidates who bring salvation programs to move the country from a state of despair, decay, corruption and slow death to a state of hope, invigoration, reform and prosperity;

We have decided to fight the presidential election battle on the basis of the following program:

1 – Declare the neutrality of Lebanon and distance it permanently from the politics of regional axes, and work with the United Nations for an international consolidation of that neutrality.

2 – Declare faith in the Lebanese Nation based on its existence as a complete, eternal and final nation endowed with all the attributes, characteristics and properties that this entails, and recuperate Lebanon’s unique Lebanese identity to the exclusion of all foreign qualifiers.

3 – Separate Religion from the State and work to adopt and establish the secular State.

4 – Fully implement all international resolutions pertaining to Lebanon, particularly resolutions 1559 and 1701, and support the establishment of the International Tribunal and facilitate its work and abide by its decisions.

5 – Eliminate and disarm the private mini-states and protectorates, both Lebanese and non-Lebanese, dismantle their infrastructures and subject them to the authority of the Lebanese Army and the Internal Security Forces.

6 – Join in the international campaign for combating terrorism, hunt down the terrorist organizations that operate in Lebanon, and eradicate their active and sleeper cells in completion of the Army’s work in Nahr El-Bared.

7 – Adopt a peer-to-peer policy in dealing with neighboring states, particularly with the Syrian State, and tightly control the borders between them and Lebanon by seeking the assistance of the international forces to the Lebanese Army in performing this task.

8 – Join in the endeavor of reforming the State and modernize its institutions, dismiss the excessive bureaucracy and adopt the principle of employment on the basis of merit and competence rather than on the basis of nepotism and cronyism.

9 – Abolish the permits of political parties with a non-Lebanese allegiance, especially those parties with links to terrorist regimes, and deny them operating from Lebanese territory.

10 – Stand up to the practice of the wholesale selling of Lebanese real estate to foreigners. Recover all real estate purchased in suspicious schemes or for the objectives of sectarian partition, changing Lebanon’s demographic composition or harming Lebanon’s national and social fabric.

11 – Bring an end to all collective naturalizations, withdraw Lebanese citizenship from newly naturalized but unmeritorious recipients, and grant citizenship only to qualified individuals who have given outstanding services to Lebanon.

12 – Prevent the permanent settlement of the Palestinian refugees by seriously and persistently seeking their return to their homes or expatriating them to countries that are able to absorb them.

13 – Grant the opportunity for Lebanese nationals residing in the broader Lebanese expatriate Diaspora to participate in the legislative elections by voting and running as candidates.

14 – Support the military institution and the security forces will all necessary material, financial and moral support to enable it to fully discharge its national obligations.

15 – Amend the Taif Agreement so as to reinstate the authority and prerogatives to the Presidency of the Republic, regardless of the sectarian denomination of the President.

We reiterate our oft-held position that to continue treating Lebanon’s metastasizing cancers with potions and medicines is futile, and saving the country with traditional and patch-up remedies based on mutual conceit, deception, bootlicking and cowardliness will not work. Salvation can only come from courage, candor, confrontation and a vision of the future, as well as the adoption of radical solutions before it is too late.

Therefore, and in order to implement this program in all its clauses, and in order for a Third Republic to rise on the ruins of this transient, worthless and lame republic,

And on behalf of the Lebanese people who are dissatisfied, desperate, angry and fed up with politics and politicians, and who are the vast majority today;

On behalf of the poor, the needy and the destitute families, and many are they;
On behalf of the oppressed, enslaved, marginalized, and the missing in the dungeons of Syria’s prisons;
On behalf of the young who have emigrated in disgust and those who are looking to emigrate;
On behalf of the emigrants who yearn to return to a country they can be proud of;
On behalf of those who dream of a country of giants and not of dwarfs;
On behalf of the martyrs and the handicapped, so that their sacrifices do not go in vain;

I have decided to declare my candidacy to the Presidency of the Republic, with this statement serving as official notice to the official competent authorities.

Lebanon, at your service
Etienne Sacre – Abu Arz
President of the Guardians of the Cedars Party – Movement for Lebanese Nationalism

November 9, 2007