The leader of the Lebanese Forces (LF), Samit Geagea. Illustration photo from the National News Agency (Ani, official).
BEIRUT — Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea on Wednesday denied any alliance between his party and Hezbollah during the recent municipal elections in Beirut, despite both groups appearing on a joint list alongside other major political parties.
In a televised interview with local channel LBCI, Geagea stressed that his party "never allied with Hezbollah" and had "not met any Hezbollah member or made any agreement" with the group.
The list, which included candidates backed by nearly all of the country’s traditional political parties — including Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces — secured 23 of the 24 seats on Beirut’s municipal council.
Challenging this consensus list was “Beirut Loves You,” a slate supported by MP Nabil Badr of al-Jamaa al-Islamiya — an Islamist group close to the Muslim Brotherhood — and likely the Future Movement. The opposition list succeeded in winning one seat, with Mahmoud Jamal elected to the council.
That result marked a shift in the composition of the council. For the first time since 1998, the body no longer maintains an even split between Christian and Muslim members: 13 of the 24 members elected are Muslim — nine Sunnis, three Shiites and one Druze — compared with 11 Christians.
Geagea said an agreement had been reached to unify Christian parties behind a single position, while Sunni MP Fouad Makhzoumi and the Islamic Projects Association, better known as the Ahbash, coordinated among Muslim factions.
"The main concern in Beirut was to preserve parity; the second goal was development," Geagea said.
He also praised the LF’s performance in the elections overall but expressed regret over the outcome in the Metn region, where Mirna Murr won the presidency of the Metn district's Union of Municipalities. Murr defeated Nicole Gemayel — Kataeb party leader Samy Gemayel's sister — who was backed by the LF.
'No one is speaking of confrontation'
Geagea also addressed the issue of Hezbollah’s disarmament, a longstanding point of contention in Lebanese politics and central to the Lebanese Forces' platform.
"No one is speaking of confrontation, no one wants confrontation, and no one will seek to head towards confrontation" over the disarmament of militias in the country, he said. He argued that the continued presence of illegal arms in Lebanon has paralyzed state institutions and hindered progress on key national priorities.
"All positive measures within the state are paralyzed due to the persistence of illegal weapons," he said. "Reconstruction, economic, financial and monetary rescue — all of this is suspended and frozen, pending the handing over of weapons. No one will agree to deal with the state in this situation."
Supporting the dialogue advocated by President Joseph Aoun regarding the state's monopoly of weapons, the LF, as the main opposition force to Hezbollah, supports a more frontal approach. "I understand very well what the president is doing concerning the weapons issue, but in my opinion, he should have told them from the first moment: my friends, the game stops here. Just tell me if you want to send your weapons to Iran? Sell them? Or give them to the army? Decide for yourselves (...)" Samir Geagea pointed out.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam echoed similar sentiments in an interview published Thursday by The Wall Street Journal, stating: "We do not want to set the country on the path of civil war, but this will not affect our commitment to extend and consolidate state authority."
Geagea welcomed Salam’s remarks, noting: "Prime Minister Salam expresses his positions more clearly [than President Aoun].”
'Hezbollah does not have the right to set conditions'
Geagea reiterated his criticism of Hezbollah’s stance on dialogue over its weapons, saying it is "not acceptable for the dialogue to be indefinitely open."
"Does this group have the right to impose its will on the other components that represent 70 to 75 percent of the Lebanese people?" he asked. "Hezbollah does not have the right to set conditions; only the Lebanese state has the right."
His comments come amid a deadlock over Hezbollah’s disarmament, with the group reportedly conditioning its participation in talks on Israel’s withdrawal from five positions it still occupies in southern Lebanon.
Geagea also called for the disarmament of Palestinian factions operating in Lebanon, and praised Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for backing Lebanese sovereignty.
"[Abbas] gave the Lebanese state something equivalent to a blank check to do what is necessary," Geagea said, referring to Abbas’s May 21 visit to Lebanon, during which he publicly supported the disarmament of Palestinian camps.
"Despite this blank check, we have retreated, waiting to see if the Hamas movement would accept or not," Geagea lamented.
