BEIRUT (Dispatches) –
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has underlined the need for the presence of the resistance movement in the Lebanese government and parliament.
In a meeting with some Hezbollah members on Wednesday, he explained the reasons why Hezbollah ran in the 1992 and 2005 general elections, saying the participation was aimed at supporting the resistance.
Referring to the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for May 15, Nasrallah stressed that Hezbollah’s “battle in the polls is that of its allies” and that the resistance group will work for the success of its allies’ candidates just as it does for its own candidates, according to the news website Al-Nashra.
“Experience has shown us that we cannot be absent in any government… Therefore, our presence in the government and parliament is essential to supporting the resistance, even if we may be in a government whose head is an opponent and even if we are accused of accompanying the corrupt,” he added.
The Hezbollah chief also described the May elections as one of the most important and dangerous political battles, whose outcome would determine the fate of other battles, calling for vigilance until the announcement of the results.
“The goal is not the victory of Hezbollah candidates, but to achieve results to strengthen the position of our allies,” he said. “We want all our allies to succeed along with us.”
Since late 2019, Lebanon has been mired in a deep financial crisis that has caused the Lebanese pound to lose around 90 percent of its value to the U.S. dollar and led its banking system to collapse, plunging the bulk of Lebanese into poverty.
The economic and financial crisis is mostly linked to the sanctions that the United States and its allies have imposed on Lebanon as well as foreign intervention in the Arab nation’s domestic affairs.
Despite the dire economic situation, Hezbollah officials do not expect the May elections to yield a result much different from 2018, when the resistance group and its allies won the majority of seats in the parliament.