Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — As Lebanon prepares to hold parliamentary elections on May 15, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi has indicated that “the security situation is under control” and there is no reason to fear a cancelation of the polls.
Here’s what we know:
• “The security situation is under control, the security services are performing all their duties, there is no reason to fear a single event that could cancel the elections,” Mawlawi said in an interview published Sunday by the newspaper An-Nahar.
• The minister also told the paper that “the Lebanese must go to the polls” and that participation in the vote constitutes “a national duty.”
• Mawlawi went on to recall that the security services “have foiled operations by members of the Islamic State jihadist group in Lebanon,” demonstrating “that the security situation in Lebanon is good, under control and very acceptable.”
• Last month, the interior minister said that three planned attacks by the Islamic State group targeting Shiite places of worship in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, had been foiled.