Kataeb Secretary-General Serge Dagher on Wednesday stressed that the Kataeb party is running for the upcoming elections with the same stance as it won’t forge alliances with the parties that have concluded a settlement to elect Michel Aoun as a President.

 

“The settlement concluded in 2016 paved the way for Hezbollah to hold sway over the country through electing his ally Michel Aoun as President of the Republic and it also led to the adoption of an electoral law that gives the majority for Hezbollah and the extension of Riad Salameh’s term,” Dagher said in an interview with OTV channel.

 

“We are running for the elections with resigned lawmakers such as Neemat Frem and Michel Mouawad and with the civil society through the opposition front. There are some groups that consider that Hezbollah's weapons have no influence on Lebanon so we will not ally with them, and there are people who do not resemble us in terms of proposals, so we will not ally with them either,” he noted.

 

“Regarding the candidacy of Majd Harb in Batroun, We believe that he is a reformist, he started preparing bills related to corruption,” he added.

 

“Why don’t Free Patriotic Movement that has the parliamentary majority and the President suspend Central Bank Governor from his duties if it does not want to dismiss him from his post?” He asked.

 

“We don’t agree with Judge Ghada Aoun's method. The problem lies in the political timing and politicization as they are adopting the principle of “judge against another” and “security body against another”,” he said.

 

Dagher stressed that there is a security body whose role is to protect Riad Salameh and another whose role is to arrest him.

“Is that a state?” he asked.

 

“No reforms will be made before the parliamentary elections, 40 to 80 billion of dollars will be spent daily on Sayrafa platform daily and we will reach the elections without deposits,” he stressed.

 

“Protecting depositors’ money is the first lie, adopting the Capital Control law is the second one, the intentions to make reforms is the third, the possibilty to recover depositors’ money is the fourth,” he affirmed.

 

“70 billion of dollars were stolen and no one recognizes the thief. The political class says that it wants reforms and calls the banks for recovering depositors' money, but how can they recover this money?” he asked.

 

“The banks reaped the profits from the interests and the state stole the money it has borrowed, so how do people get back their money? It is strange that we only hear about the accountability of Central Bank Governor, what about the accountability of Lebanese officials?” he added.

 

“We believe that whoever ruined the country cannot fix it, whoever led us to this situation over the past 30 years will not be able to save us,” he pointed out.

 

Dagher said that the party’s goal in the elections is to achieve the change.