The logo of the Kataeb party. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Former Kataeb MP Samer Saadeh on Saturday announced he was resigning as the party’s local head in the northern town of Batroun in protest over not being selected as one of its candidates for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Here’s what we know:
• In a statement, Saadeh — who represented Tripoli in Parliament from 2009 to 2018 — accused Kataeb Party leader Samy Gemayel of “secretly negotiating” with Majd Harb, the party’s candidate for the legislative elections, scheduled for May 15, in the Batroun district.
• Saadeh, whose father Georges was an MP from Batroun between 1968 and 1992 and also served as the head of the Kataeb, said he was stepping down as the local branch chief of the party in Batroun.
• Gemayel on Monday announced that Harb, whose father Boutros served as a Kataeb MP from Batroun for decades, would run under the banner of the party in Batroun.
• Batroun is part of the third electoral district in North Lebanon, and the home constituency of Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Gebran Bassil.
• The Kataeb, a self-styled reformist party, earned only three seats in the 2018 parliamentary elections. The party’s MPs resigned from the Parliament after the Aug. 4, 2020 Beirut port explosion. Sami Gemayel, the party’s leader, is the scion of the Gemayel family that established the Kataeb and includes one former president, Bachir, who was assassinated in 1982, and Amin, who served as president from 1982 to 1988.