Nasrallah openly endorses Franjieh's presidential nomination
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Monday openly endorsed the presidential nomination of Marada Movement chief Suleiman Franjieh, around two weeks after Hezbollah MP Mohammed Raad announced that the party had an undeclared candidate.
“The natural candidate whom Hezbollah backs in the presidential election and who meets our qualifications is Suleiman Franjieh,” Nasrallah said in a televised address marking Hezbollah’s Day of the Wounded.
“We do not have anything called Hezbollah's candidate … What we have is a candidate backed by Hezbollah and there is a difference between the two terms,” Nasrallah explained, adding that “unconditional dialogue is needed over the president.”
He also noted that Hezbollah’s declared support for Franjieh does not mean that the party is “giving up the MoU with the Free Patriotic Movement or withdrawing from it.”
“In Hezbollah, I’m the keenest on this MoU and we are keen on this understanding, friendship and relation with the FPM,” Nasrallah said.
“Lebanon needs pacification, dialogue and communication, or else we would have to coexist with the presidential vacuum,” he added.
Nasrallah also called for the parties to “announce their true candidates” or “go to parliament to try to elect a president.”
Should the parties fail to elect a president, they should immediately “engage in a dialogue over the candidates,” Nasrallah went on to say.
Source: Naharnet
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