Restoring dignity doesn’t draw closer with Visit to Syria or conceding Seat to SSNP
The candidate for the Maronite seat in the Beirut I district, Nadim Gemayel, implicitly slammed Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun and said, “He who wants to liberate Achrafieh should not concede a parliamentary seat to [Syrian Social Nationalist Party MP] Assad Hardane in the South, and the one who wants to restore the dignity of Beirut’s citizens, and Achrafieh’s particularly, does not go to Syria to restore dignity.”
“The one who wants to liberate the region should not stop calling for Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons to return,” Gemayel said during an electoral ceremony in Karm al-Zeitun on Monday.
Gemayel refused dialogue with Syria as long as it did not recognize the Lebanese state and did not give information about those kidnapped by and detained in its prisons.
“Our force neither stems from Syria nor from Iran nor the United States, but from the heart of Achrafieh, Rmeil, Saifi and Beirut: Lebanon’s heart,” he said.
“We are not afraid of our allies, and we are not ashamed of them, because our alliance is based on national and basic principles between the Kataeb party and the Lebanese Forces, as well as between all the parties in March 14,” he said, noting that the alliance would remain until “Lebanon First” was attained.
Gemayel said he was “proud” that Achrafieh residents were still loyal to his father, assassinated former President-elect Bachir Gemayel, and all the “martyrs’ cause.”