Lebanese Forces boss Samir Geagea. (Photo: ANI)
BEIRUT — Lebanese Forces head Samir Geagea on Saturday announced his party’s support for a candidate running in Akkar during the May 15 parliamentary elections, after declaring Friday that the party would nominate one candidate running in the Baalbeck-Hermel district and support another.
Here’s what we know:
• On Saturday, Geagea said the Lebanese Forces would “support independent candidate Wissam Mansour for the Orthodox seat in Akkar.” He had said Friday that the party would renominate Dr. Antoine Habchi for the Maronite seat in the Baalbek-Hermel constituency, and support independent candidate Dr. Elie Bitar for the Greek Catholic seat.
• During his announcement of the Baalbeck-Hermel candidates, Geagea said that the region had been “kidnapped for 46 years by the ‘resistance axis’,” a reference to Hezbollah and its pro-Iranian policies, which he claimed had “led the region further toward war, poverty and misery.”
• The LF leader announced “the willingness and capability to develop Lebanon” and “Deir al-Ahmar, which we refuse to see turn orange or yellow,” in allusion to the colors of the rival Free Patriotic Movement, headed by Gebran Bassil, and of Hezbollah.
• Baalbeck-Hermel constituency has ten seats (six Shiites, two Sunnis, one Maronite, and one Greek Catholic). Geagea has already announced a series of Lebanese Forces candidates in several regions — including Chawki Daccache in Kesrouan, former MP Fady Karam in Koura, MP Pierre Bou Assi in Baabda, lawyer Elias Stephan and MP George Okais in Zahle, Sethrida Geagea (his wife), and the outgoing deputy Joseph Ishac in the Maronite seats of Bcharre caza , former minister Melhem Riachi and independent Razi el-Hajj in Metn