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Ballot boxes for Sunday’s parliamentary elections were distributed Saturday to polling stations across Lebanon, as security forces began their deployment around voting centers.
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Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Friday snapped back at Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil over his latest remarks against the LF, a few hours before the country enters electoral silence for Sunday’s parliamentary elections.
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Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Friday said anew that he is in favor of “peace with Israel,” while adding that such a peace would have its “conditions.”
Full StoryHizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday called on supporters to vote Sunday against “those conspiring against the resistance and its arms.”
“Voting on election day will be a message to all those conspiring against the resistance and its arms and against the future of the Lebanese,” Nasrallah said in a televised address during Hizbullah’s electoral rally in the Bekaa.
Full StoryThe May 15 parliamentary elections come amid a “delicate situation” and will decide Lebanon’s “strategic choice” in the coming period, Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh has said.
“Our choice is known and clear and we’ve been engaged in the battle of choices for the past 30 years. We have not changed and we will not change,” Franjieh said in an interview on al-Mayadeen TV.
Full StoryEx-PM Fouad Saniora has called on the Lebanese to vote for a “strong state” and against “gun silencers and explosives,” in an apparent jab at Hizbullah, a few days ahead of the May 15 parliamentary elections.
“We are building and they are destroying and sabotaging. We are the ones who want Lebanon to be Arab, sovereign and independent in words and deeds,” Saniora said at a press conference.
Full StoryProtestors in Lebanon denounced the killing of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh for the third day.
Lebanese and Palestinians gathered Friday in Tyre, after a candlelight vigil took place last night outside the United Nations ESCWA building in Beirut.
Full StoryFree Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has launched a vehement verbal attack on the Lebanese Forces and its leader Samir Geagea, during an electoral rally in the Keserwan-Jbeil district.
“I’ve heard them repeatedly saying that those who vote for the FPM would be voting for Hizbullah, what a joke! In turn I tell you that those who vote for the LF would be voting for Daesh and for Israel and its regional allies,” Bassil charged.
Full StoryPresident Michel Aoun on Friday lamented that “some of the money that is being paid in the electoral juncture is coming from abroad,” adding that he is “betting on voters’ awareness and their rejection of being commodities that can be bought and sold.”
“There are candidates who are exploiting the difficult economic and social circumstances and paying money to appropriate the choice of voters, which should be free of any restraints,” Aoun told a delegation from the European observer mission that will monitor Sunday’s elections.
Full StoryGrand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan on Thursday warned that boycotting elections would be “surrender,” while stressing that Lebanon should not be “surrendered” to the “enemies of Arabism.”
“The upcoming parliamentary elections are an important juncture in Lebanon’s history and we have given our directions and instructions to our Lebanese sons and brothers to take part and not to boycott,” Daryan said in a meeting at Dar al-Fatwa with the Saudi, Kuwaiti and Qatari ambassadors.
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