Nasrallah: Lebanese face choice between sovereignty, submission in upcoming vote

The secretary-general of the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement says voters in Lebanon face a choice in the upcoming parliamentary elections between a faction whose main concern is Lebanon and one that seeks to please the United States.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah made the remarks in a televised speech broadcast live from the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Tuesday evening.

“Today, you choose between those who employ their foreign relations to make Lebanon a strong nation, and the other team that brings the foreign money to add it to their bank accounts. You have to honestly select between those who shoulder the responsibility no matter what the difficulties are and between the team that has been deceiving you for years,” Nasrallah told the audience.

“You are set to elect the real sovereigns who want Lebanon a strong nation, and the fake sovereigns who want it an exposed country. You are choosing between those who want Lebanon a master in the region, and others who want it to be begging on the doors of foreign embassies,” Nasrallah added.

The Hezbollah chief said Lebanon belongs to all its people regardless of their religious and political beliefs, and that the Lebanese resistance movement does not want to change the country’s political system and the constitution.

“We are not presenting ourselves as an alternative to the government, even in the issue of resistance, as there is an existing government in Lebanon. We have a constitution and laws,” he stressed.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah would work toward forming a “just government” that works for all Lebanese people, adding that the movement would use its relations with other countries to bring prosperity to Lebanon.

“We must all aspire to a just and capable government. A just government is one that presents an electoral law, and its citizens feel that they are able to send their representatives to the parliament,” Nasrallah said.

“What we call for is partnership, and everyone must be represented in the parliament in normal quotas,” the secretary-general of Hezbollah added. “Elimination and exclusion under the slogans of majority and minority would plunge Lebanon into chaos, and I stress that we are after nationwide partnership in order to pull Lebanon out of its crises.”

Since late 2019, Lebanon has been mired in a deep financial crisis that has caused the Lebanese pound to lose around 90 percent of its value to the US dollar and led its banking system to collapse, plunging many people into poverty.

The economic and financial crisis is mostly linked to the sanctions that the United States and its allies have imposed on Lebanon as well as foreign intervention in the Arab nation’s domestic affairs.

Many blame rampant corruption and mismanagement within the ranks of the political elite for the woes.

Parliamentary elections in Lebanon are held once every four years, and voters this year are to cast their ballots on May 15.

The Hezbollah resistance movement and its allies succeeded in winning majority seats in 2018. Lebanon’s parliament is equally divided between Christians and Muslims. The new legislature will elect a new president after President Michel Aoun’s term ends in October.

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