Raad: Next President Must Embrace Resistance, Be Aware of Its Role
Head of Loyalty to Resistance bloc MP Mohammed Raad stressed Monday that the country's next president must “embrace the resistance and must be aware of its role and importance.”
“Our people and their representatives (in parliament) have the right to choose the president who can preserve the resistance's achievements, the unity of the Lebanese, national sovereignty and independence,” Raad said during a memorial service in the southern town of Deir al-Zahrani.
“We are before a presidential vote in a country whose land was liberated from a Zionist occupation,” Raad noted.
“Had it not been for the resistance and its fighters and martyrs, this election would not have been on the table today, and therefore it is not acceptable to elect a president whose mentality and choices contradict with the resistance's achievements,” he added.
The top Hizbullah lawmaker underlined that “the next president must embrace the resistance and be aware of its role and importance, not out of idealistic devotion but rather out of keenness on national sovereignty, which would always be at risk without resistance.”
“Those nominating themselves for the presidency must endorse this vision while competing against a candidate who is carrying the program of a new civil war,” Raad added, in an apparent reference to Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea.
Last week, Geagea announced a presidential program that focuses on “restoring the authority of the state against the proliferation of weapons.” He is the sole politician to have officially announced his candidacy for the polls, whose first round will be held on Wednesday.
Without naming him, Raad emphasized that “all parties” do not perceive Geagea as a serious presidential candidate.
President Michel Suleiman’s tenure ends on May 25, but the constitutional period to elect a new head of state began on March 25.
The election is not expected to be an easy process amid a lack of agreement on a consensual candidate.
Y.R.
S.D.B.
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