Harb Says Presidential Polls First, People Want to Practice Democratic Rights

Telecommunications Minister Butros Harb said on Thursday that the municipal elections have shown the people's yearning to practice their democratic right through elections and warned against staging the parliamentary elections before the election of a president.

“Staging the parliamentary elections before the presidential ones will push Lebanon towards an undefined adventure,” said Harb in a press conference.

“Beholders of a theory to hold the parliamentary elections before the presidential ones must be careful of implicating the country in a project that destroys its constitution,” he added.

Lebanon has been without a president since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014.

Speaker Nabih Berri had launched an initiative recently aimed at ending Lebanon's impasse. He called for shortening the term of parliament and that the elections be held based on the 1960 law should political forces fail to agree on a new electoral one.

He also called for staging the presidential elections after the parliamentary ones and forming a national unity government.

On the outcome of the municipal elections where Harb won the polls in the northern village of Tannourine, his native town, against a list backed by the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement, he said: “Everyone must accept the rules of democratic competition based on elections.

“Attempts of political parties to confiscate the will of Lebanese have fallen,” he said and added that the parties are divided by national and democratic principles and accused them of forming alliances and uniting temporarily under electoral circumstances.

Lebanon staged its municipal elections over a four-stage during the month of May.