Hizbullah-FPM Electoral Negotiations Reportedly Collapse

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Hizbullah and the Free Patriotic Movement may not be on the same electoral lists in the upcoming parliamentary elections, a media report said.

“Negotiations over several districts have collapsed,” al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Monday.

It said the dispute had started in the Keserwan-Jbeil district, “after Hizbullah nominated Sheikh Hussein Zoaiter, its top official in the Mount Lebanon and the North regions.”

“The FPM, especially its leader Jebran Bassil and incumbent MP Simon Abi Ramia, were dismayed by the move,” the newspaper added.

“When we are strong, no one can impose a candidate on us,” Bassil has said from the Jbeil district town of Lassa.

Al-Liwaa said the “electoral divorce” between the two political allies is likely to affect most districts in Mount Lebanon, Baalbek-Hermel, Zahle and Western Bekaa.

“The first indication of the electoral clash or competition was represented by a Hizbullah official's remarks that the party is inclined to hit back at Bassil by forming an independent list in Keserwan-Jbeil and nominating ex-MP Tarek Habshi in Baalbek-Hermel,” al-Liwaa added, quoting an unnamed Hizbullah official.

Comments 1
Thumb gma-bs-artist. 05 March 2018, 20:01

Hizbullah-FPM electoral negotiations may have collapsed but not before the FPM was forced to remove Dr Naji Hayek from it's list in Jbeil. He's much more popular than Dr Khoury and in some internal polls even Abi Ramia himself. But the Hezb sees him as too right wing and too vocal in his pro-Christian rights stance and refuses to have him sit in the parliament. FPM once again acquiesced. And by parachuting the settler Hussein Zoaiter the Hezb has announced how it is actively changing the face of the region. The FPM officials were warned as far back as 2006 about how the demography of the region was under threat by the large numbers of new settlers Learn from what happened in Palestine we told them, but the refused to listen. Now they are trying to deal with the consequences but it looks like it's a fait accompli.