Kataeb candidate for the Maronite seat in Beirut I Nadim Gemayel on Tuesday stressed that parliamentary elections were not an end.

 

“I found out that the experience in the Parliament was not one of the best experiences I have wished for. The Parliament has two main duties: making laws and scrutinizing the work of the government and this never happened as it turned out that after six or seven years the budgets had not been approved,” Gemayel said in an interview with Michelle Tueini on Instagram.

 

"I have reached a point where I asked myself whether I am running or not? The choice was either to run or to withdraw from the electoral race, and I chose the first as I deem the elections as a referendum that allows the people to choose the Lebanon they want,” he added.

 

Gemayel stressed that the Kataeb party do not boycott political life, saying that it is the duty of every candidate to reject the control of Hezbollah over his region and the Lebanese state, especially since Hezbollah puts a gun to our heads and shoots and we should never tolerate such acts.

He also voiced regret over the speech delivered by President Michel Aoun in which the latter has defended Hezbollah during his Vatican visit.

Aoun said that Hezbollah’s weapons had “no influence in any way” on the security situation of the Lebanese and that “resisting the (Israeli) occupation” was not terrorism.

“Our goal in contesting in the elections is to weaken Hezbollah’s presence in the elections and in the parliament,” he noted.

“Hezbollah’s weapons threatened the Lebanese entity and I think that the problem is the illegal weapon that controls the state and threatens the economy,” he added.

“We, as the Kataeb party resigned from the parliament after the deadly Beirut blast which occurred on the 4th of august 2020 and killed more than 200 people, and if the other politicians had thought about it they would have resigned also,” he noted.

“Before our resignation, we submitted several proposals concerning the capital control but we live in a farm not in a country, and the politicians, who did not vote in favor of these proposals, were smuggling their money abroad. The Kataeb party haven’t voted for corrupt budgets or salary scale,” he said.

 

He also pointed out that the Lebanese youth belong to the Kataeb party as it expresses their ambitions through some deputies and party figures.

"I carry the values and principles of Bachir but I also carry my ambitions and the dreams of my children,” he added.

 

Gemayel called for liberating the country from the iranian occupation, saying that sovereignty must be restored in order to get back the judiciary and the institutions.

“The upcoming elections are important as every Lebanese can express his opinion and affirms that he seeks freedom and sovereignty,” he emphasized.