|
 Opposition Kicks off Elections Campaign:
'No' to Syria, 'No' to Lahoud
by:
The opposition has kicked off its elections
campaign on a platform of 'no' to Syria's tutelage, 'no' to Syrian
military presence and a 'final no' to extending or renewing President
Lahoud's term in power.
This came in a statement splashed on An Nahar's page one Friday by Qornet
Shahwan, a coalition of center-right politicians functioning under
Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, the head of the Maronite Catholic church.
The statement was released after a marathon meeting Thursday evening held
by the prominent leaders of Qornet Shahwan under the chairmanship of
Bishop Youssef Bishara. The statement was immediately endorsed by Gen.
Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement.
Among prominent attendants were ex-President Amin Gemayel, presidential
aspirants Butros Harb and Nassib Lahoud, outspoken Qornet Shahwan
spokesman Fares Seid, ideologue Samir Franjieh and An Nahar's Board
Chairman Gebran Tueni.
"We are contesting the local elections, the presidential elections
and the parliamentary elections this year and in 2005 as the same
coalition that defeated the regime in the Metn by-elections of 2002,"
Nassib Lahoud said.
The local elections are scheduled for May, the presidential elections for
this coming autumn and the parliamentary elections for the summer of next
year. The coalition of Qornet Shahwan, Aoun's FPM and Samir Geagea's
Lebanese Forces had delivered a humiliating defeat to Lahoud's regime in
the Metn by-elections.
The new elections platform of the opposition was spelled out in three main
points:
1-Confronting any Palestinian attempt to resume military violence against
northern Israel from South Lebanon, which was manifested by Ahmed Jibril's
Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General
Command in the wake of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin's assassination.
2-Closing once and for all the file of extension or renewal for President
Lahoud. This clears the way for the constitutional stipulation about the
rotation of power to be respected by means of electing a new president
capable of fulfilling the national aspiration of ending Syria's
guardianship.
3-Transforming the impending municipal elections to a national manifesto
proving the ability of the Lebanese, Christians and Muslims alike, to
handle their domestic affairs on their own, without any need for a foreign
guardianship.
|
