Sheikh Abdel Latif Derian encourages Sunnis to vote in May

BEIRUT — Lebanon's top Sunni religious authority, Mufti Sheikh Abdel Latif Derian, on Friday urged Lebanese citizens to participate “without hesitation” in the May 15 legislative elections, which are being boycotted by Sunni leader and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

Here’s what we know:

    • “All Lebanese must go to the polls without hesitation,” said Sheikh Derian, in a message addressed to the Lebanese on the eve of the holy month of Ramadan. Some Lebanese perceive the elections as an opportunity for change, while others do not expect significant breakthroughs.

    • “I see that many candidates, whether old or new, are people who want change,” the Mufti said. This is not the first time that Derian has called for strong participation in the legislative elections from the Sunni community.

    • The mufti also accused “those in power of demolishing everything the Lebanese have built for years, and of hindering any attempt at change or reform.”

    • “Despite the corruption and all the failures, we are not going to give up in the face of starvation [imposed by] the corrupt,” promised Derian.

    • In turn, the Shiite Jaafarite mufti, Ahmad Kabalan, who is close to Hezbollah, sent a message to the Lebanese on the eve of Ramadan. He said that “all the signs show that the country is heading towards holding the legislative elections.”

    • “Christian Lebanon, the Lebanon of the Church, it is my Lebanon,” he added, pleading in favor of “citizenship, far from confessionalism… We must protect the project of the state, the army and the security forces, and improve the structure of the judiciary, with a view to justice far from political and confessional calculations,” he said.

    • “We must ensure a parliamentary majority capable of taking crucial decisions to save the country from collapse and the American blockade,” Kabalan concluded.