FPM Holds Internal Vote to Choose Parliamentary Candidates
The Free Patriotic Movement was on Sunday carrying out internal elections aimed at choosing candidates for the country's next parliamentary polls.
More than 13,000 voters in 14 districts were expected to cast ballots to choose 73 candidates in the first phase of the vote, LBCI television said.
A second and final round will follow.
FPM chief Jebran Bassil meanwhile announced that the movement's internal polls prove the invalidity of the excuses that the Lebanese state used to justify the postponement of the parliamentary elections.
“The importance of these polls is that they pave the way for creating advanced, democratic parties,” he said.
“The sons of the FPM have a duty to turn out massively because their votes are the foundations of our decisions,” Bassil added.
The internal polls come two days after the FPM expelled the prominent members Ziad Abs, Naim Aoun, Antoine Nasrallah and Paul Abi Haidar on charges of "committing repeated public and blatant violations that contradict with the simplest rules of organizational discipline despite repeated warnings."
In a statement, the FPM also warned all members against “tackling the movement's internal affairs in the media and on social networking websites.”
In remarks to LBCI TV on Friday, Ziad Abs, a prominent FPM official in Beirut's Ashrafieh area, said that his latest televised appearances were the reason behind his expulsion.
Media reports had said in May that the FPM leadership was studying the possibility of expelling some 20 members, including Abs, for “rebelling against movement decisions.”
The dispute had first erupted over Abs' opposition to the FPM's alliance in Beirut's municipal elections with al-Mustaqbal Movement. The dispute pitted him against former FPM minister Nicolas Sehnaoui.
Abs was reportedly not consulted over the alliance.
FPM founder MP Michel Aoun had vowed to “hold accountable” those responsible for the so-called “revolt” within the FPM, a source close to Bassil told al-Liwaa newspaper in May.
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