The Assyrian Democratic Organization
Beirut – Al-Moustaqbal — Al-Moustaqbal Movement leader Saad Hariri said Monday that Premier Fouad Saniora’s majority government emerged victorious from the by-elections and proved that it is not biased in favor of any faction.
Hariri said the March 14 majority alliance registered victories on Sunday in the Beirut and Metn constituencies. In Beirut, al-Moustaqbal candidate Mohammed al-Amin Itani won the competition registering a “decisive victory against crime and its tools,” Hariri said. He was referring to the late MP Walid Eido who represented al-Moustaqbal in parliament until he was killed by a powerful car bomb blast along with his son, Khaled, on June 13.
By casting their ballots on Sunday, voters in Beirut achieved “victory against crime and its tools … Beirut said it will not forget its martyrs irrespective of how many car bombs the criminals send to it,” Hariri said. In the Metn constituency, ex-President Amin Gemayel who lost the competition with a narrow margin “emerged victorious … because Christians in general and Maronites, in particular, supported him,” Hariri said.
“Results testify to this fact.” Gemayel entered the race to fill in the parliamentary seat that went vacant when his son, Pierre, was gunned down by unidentified assailants on Nov. 21. “Sheik Amin emerged victorious and Pierre, the martyr, also emerged victorious,” Hariri added.
He criticized charges to the al-Moustaqbal movement of seeking to Islamize Lebanon, stressing that such a “slogan had been fabricated by Syrian intelligence and circulated in Lebanon.”
