Hezbollah Is Preventing State Building
March 14 General Coordinator and former MP Faris Soueid said that Hezbollah is blocking the state-building process by setting up its own state.
Soueid said, in an interview with LBC television on Saturday, that the international community was exerting pressure on the Syrian regime to establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon.
“I don’t think the Syrian regime would risk confronting the international community,” Soueid said.
Responding to a question on unity within the March 14 movement, Soueid said that the alliance was “solid,” adding that the movement “passed through the worst stage during the formation of the cabinet but we will campaign in the elections together.”
“If the March 8 alliance campaigns under the theme of reopening the ‘civil war chronicles’ then we will lose the elections in the Christian-dominated districts, but if national themes are discussed then we would surely win,” he said.
Soueid said the March 14 alliance would campaign under the slogan “that we can’t build a state where another state is being established.” This is a reference to Hezbollah-dominated security zones established in Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern Lebanon.
“I think that the reconciliation efforts have entered a stage where both parties are pulling the ropes,” he said.
“Geagea has shown more intelligence than Franjieh in dealing with the reconciliation efforts, and if Franjieh rejected reconciliation then I think he is going to lose public support, because the public are looking for [reconciliation] to take place,” he added.
With regard to the upcoming elections, Soueid said the United Nations should monitor the electoral process in regions where the state does not have absolute authority.
“The elections will be held on schedule and we insist on international monitoring of the elections,” he said.
Soueid said elections must be held in a single day because he feared that if a certain party sensed a loss at the beginning of the voting process, then “it may wage another May 7-style attack.”