Mashnouq Says Beirut Vote an 'Arab-Persian Battle'

Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq on Monday described the upcoming electoral battle in Beirut's second district as an “Arab-Persian battle.”

“The vote in Beirut is a battle of fate, dignity and resolution between Arabism and Persianism,” Mashnouq, who is running for a Sunni seat in the district, said during a meeting with Beiruti families.

He reiterated that “political Velayat-e Faqih” will not take through ballot boxes “what it had failed to take through arms on May 7, 2008,” in an apparent jab at Hizbullah and Shiite Iran's form of Islamic rule.

“This time the battle is through ballot boxes, not through arms, muscles or fiery rhetoric,” Mashnouq added.

He noted that the presence of eight electoral lists competing against al-Mustaqbal Movement's list in Beirut is aimed at “scattering the votes of Beirut's people in order to lower the electoral threshold to the advantage of Hizbullah's list.”

“No list, other than Hizbullah's list, has a single political sentence in its electoral platform, and all they are focusing on is services and development... Let them nominate themselves to Beirut's municipality!” Mashnouq went on to say, slamming rival lists formed by businessmen, independents, civil society figures and leftist and Nasserite parties.