Hezbollah weapons at the heart of Lebanon’s elections Sunday
AALBEK, LEBANON
It was a sea of yellow as thousands of men, women and children waving Hezbollah flags and wearing the group’s trademark yellow caps rallied on a giant plot of land in the ancient eastern city of Baalbek in support of the heavily armed militant group.
One after another, many attendees vowed to vote Sunday for the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and its allies in Lebanon’s closely watched parliamentary elections, rejecting any attempt to disarm the powerful group.
Despite a devastating economic collapse and multiple other crises gripping Lebanon — the culmination of decades of corruption and mismanagement — the deeply divisive issue of Hezbollah’s weapons has been at the center of the vote for a new 128member parliament.
Disarming the group has dominated political campaigns among almost all of the group’s opponents. Those include Westernbacked mainstream political groups and independents who played a role in nationwide protests since the start of the economic meltdown in October 2019.
“This is the biggest misinformation campaign. Why? Because they are implementing America’s policy against the resistance weapons,” senior Hezbollah official Hussein Haj Hassan told The Associated Press ahead of the rally in Baalbek.
Hezbollah was the only group officially allowed to keep its weapons after the 1975-90 civil war because it was fighting Israeli forces occupying parts of south Lebanon. In 2000, Israel withdrew from Lebanon but Hezbollah and others in the small Mediterranean nation insisted its weapons were necessary to defend it against Israel, which has one of the strongest armies in the region.
Hezbollah has since fought a monthlong war with Israel in 2006 that ended in a draw and after the start of the conflict in neighboring Syria the Iranbacked group sent thousands of fighters to fight alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces helping him tip the balance of power in his favor.
Hezbollah’s rivals say its weapons and its backing of regional forces such as Assad’s and the Iranbacked Houthi rebels in Yemen have harmed Lebanon’s relations with oil-rich
Persian Gulf nations. Those nations have categorized the Lebanese group as a terrorist organization and withheld crucial financial support for the country.
Haj Hassan, a legislator since 1996 and a Cabinet minister three times, said claims that Hezbollah is responsible for Lebanon’s collapse were “a big lie.”
“They forgot the political system, economic system, corruption, the war in Syria and its effects on Lebanon and they forgot the American
sanctions,” he said at his home near Baalbek.
The bespectacled 62year-old lost two brothers who fought for Hezbollah during Lebanon’s civil war and a nephew in Syria.
Hezbollah maintains its weapons are to defend Lebanon and not for internal use. But the group used them against rivals in May 2008 in the worst fighting at the time in many years. The Hezbollah offensive came after the government of then-Hezbollah opponent Fouad Saniora decided to dismantle the group’s military telecommunications network.
“No Lebanese group should have the right to be armed while other Lebanese are not,” said Samy Gemayel, head of the rightwing Kataeb party, in comments to the local LBC station Friday night.
The vote this year is the first after the economic collapse, described by the World Bank as one of the worst the world has witnessed in more than 150 years. It is also the first since the August 2020 blast at Beirut’s port that killed more than 200, injured thousands and caused largescale damage in the capital.
Three former Cabinet ministers allied with Hezbollah
were charged in the port blast investigation but have refused to show up for questioning by the investigative judge. Hezbollah’s leader has blasted the judge and called for his replacement, and the investigation has been suspended for months following legal challenges by politicians.
Parliamentary elections are held once every four years and the last vote in 2018 gave a majority of seats to Hezbollah and its allies with 71 legislators.
As Lebanon sinks deeper into poverty, many Lebanese have been more openly critical of Hezbollah. They blame the group – along with the ruling class – for the devastating, multiple crises plaguing the country, including a dramatic currency crash and severe shortages in medicine and fuel.
Some expect its main Christian ally, the Free Patriotic Movement founded by President Michel Aoun, to lose seats. Others have expressed disappointment at Hezbollah’s unshakable alliance with Nabih Berri, Lebanon’s longtime parliament speaker seen by many as the godfather of Lebanon’s corrupt sectarian-based and elite-dominated political system.