Re-elected Berri says will meet 'white votes' with a 'white heart'
"I will put the insults behind me... and approach the 'white votes' with a white heart," Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said Tuesday, in one of his trademark quips, after being re-elected as parliament speaker for a seventh consecutive term.
65 lawmakers elected Berri while 23 blank votes were casted and 40 were canceled.
Berri said he would extend his hand to all lawmakers so that, together, they can streamline overdue reforms and facilitate the appointment of a prime minister and a new president.
"The Lebanese, and the rest of world, are looking to you as a beacon of hope, possibly the only one," Berri told lawmakers. "We all live if Lebanon lives."
He called for a Parliament that strengthens civil peace and national unity and for ending sectarianism and the splitting of quotas in Lebanon.
Berri urged the MPs not to give up Lebanon's rights and not to normalize or compromise its resources. He also called them to protect the depositors' rights.
"Let the disagreement and the competition be for the best of Lebanon and the Lebanese," Berri concluded.
Source: Naharnet
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