Berri: Elections Shouldn't Be Regarded as "Fateful" for Lebanon

25/01/2009 | Al Manar

While the Lebanese rival political blocs launched the election "battle" four months ahead of scheduled parliamentary elections believed to be "decisive" and "fateful," Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said that despite the importance of the forthcoming elections, they should not be regarded as decisive for Lebanon. "Rather, the elections would define the characteristics of the coming political period, not the nation’s destiny," he said.

During a meeting with municipality chiefs from Jezzine and Jabal AL-Rihan at his residence in Ain al-Tineh on Sunday, Berri said that only those who had made mistakes and had disregarded Lebanon’s principles would, out of their fear of being held accountable by voters, call the elections "fateful for their political project."

Berri also questioned what he called a resumption of "instinctive rhetoric," with parliamentary elections only four months away, arguing that such language was harmful and resulted in economic and social crises.

The Speaker, meanwhile, stressed the need to compensate southern Lebanese for the 2006 July War, and said that Saudi Arabia had realized that some of the money it granted to this end had been misused. Berri, however, defended the Council for South Lebanon and said the council’s rights had been violated.