Al Assad ally plots comeback in Lebanese poll
Former spymaster Al Sayyed is running in first election since 2009
Afriend of Bashar Al Assad who was once one of Lebanon’s most powerful men is trying to make a comeback, with the backing of the Iranbacked Hezbollah movement.
Jameel Al Sayyed rose to become Lebanon’s feared intelligence chief during Syria’s 15year domination of the country after its 1975-90 civil war. He quit in 2005, weeks after former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated, and spent four years in jail until he was released without charge over the killing.
Now 68, the retired general and former spymaster is running on Sunday in Lebanon’s first parliamentary election since 2009.
Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri, a Sunni, is expected to remain in power though he is likely to lose some seats to rivals, including candidates allied to Hezbollah.
But Hariri, who is backed by the West and leads a government that includes Hezbollah and nearly all Lebanon’s other main parties, has signalled his concern by indirectly identifying Al Sayyed as “Bashar Al Assad’s candidate”.
The Baalbek-Hermel constituency in eastern Lebanon, where Al Sayyed is running as an independent candidate, has become one of the most important battlegrounds in the election.
Al Sayyed said in an interview in his home village of Nabi Ayla in the fertile Bekaa Valley that Hezbollah’s opponents have chosen it “as a point of confrontation; I am an independent but not neutral.”
Making clear his allegiance is with Hezbollah, he said: “I have firm political convictions in support of the resistance.” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said he will go to the district if necessary to support Hezbollah and its allies against Hariri’s Future Movement and the Lebanese Forces party led by Samir Geagea, a former Christian militia leader.
Al Sayyed’s critics say his potential comeback and that of his wartime opponents from the anti-Syria camp, such as Geagea, could entrench old divisions.
One of the biggest anti-Syria dissidents of that time, Christian politician Michel Aoun, is now president of the country of four million.