Lebanon's pharmacists' syndicate symbol. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — The Future Movement announced in a statement that the candidate list it supported, along with the Lebanese Forces (LF), in the pharmacists' syndicate elections won "with all its members," the state-run National News Agency reported.
Joe Salloum, head of the pharmacists' syndicate, who was a candidate on the winning list, told L'Orient Today that he had maintained his seat. The Future Movement candidate, Raed Sabsabi, also won membership on the syndicate's pension council, the party added.
Salloum also indicated that the election saw two candidate lists competing, one supported by the Future Movement, LF, Kataeb, the Progressive Socialist Party and Joe Salloum's group, and another supported by Hezbollah, the Free Patriotic Movement and "protest groups." Salloum added that his list won all five seats on the syndicate.
The pharmacists' syndicate congratulated the winners via social media, naming them as Simona Sabbat, Mary Ghossoub, Raed Sabsabi, Vera Haidar and Bahia Fadel. Salloum said he "will continue to fight for the rights of the sick and [to] support them."
According to the NNA, in a comment on the results, the pharmacists' committee of the LF said that "the colleagues proved that they are trustworthy in establishing the standards of reform, clarity and development in the pharmacists' syndicate in the face of the claimants of change who have narrow interests, and in the face of the claimants of reform who contribute to breaking the balances, in addition to the claimants of trade union work."
Lebanon, in the grip of socio-economic collapse for the past three years, has been confronting a pharmaceutical drug crisis for over a year, with frequent product shortages — often blamed on importers stockpiling drugs — and price hikes that have provoked anger among the population, 80 percent of whom now live in poverty according to the UN.