Head of the Amal Movement Nabih Berri addresses Parliament on May 25, 2021. (Credit: Nabil Ismaïl)
BEIRUT– Two former ministers and incumbent MPs, Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zeaiter, who were summoned for questioning in the Beirut port explosion probe, are running in the upcoming parliamentary elections, announced Amal Movement leader and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Monday from Ain el-Tineh.
Here’s what we know:
• Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said in a press conference on Monday that “the upcoming elections are not the first … after the Taif Agreement [signed in 1989], but they are the first in which I sense this huge unprecedented amount of interest internationally and regionally.”
• He added that regional and international interest in the parliamentary elections has not waned, “even though we are witnessing the start of a world war,” offering his opinion on the ever-increasing global tensions caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
• Berri presented the broad outlines of his electoral program, which will be presented under the slogan "unity is hope to save Lebanon.” According to him, Amal is “committed to the constitution and working to implement what has not been implemented from the Taif Agreement, working to adopt a modern electoral law, preserve depositors’ rights, not to waste any cup of water or a cubic meter of oil wealth at sea, the adoption of the expanded decentralization law, democratic pressure to implement the reform laws [and] completing the investigation of the port explosion.”