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BEIRUT, April 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Lebanese Druze opposition leader Walid Jumblatt here Sunday rejected a delay in upcoming elections and urged for unity of the opposition factions to win the elections.
Jumblatt, leader of the Progressive Socialist
Party, told a press conference that "of course we insist on elections on
schedule," calling on the opposition to meet and come up with a programme.
"We should have a clear and ambitious answer to
what's next," he said, predicting an opposition win regardless of the shape of
the electoral law.
He also expressed his disagreement with the UN
resolution 1559in what concerns Lebanon's Hezbollah (Party of God) and called on
the opposition to have a unified vision of means to hold dialogue with
Hezbollah.
On the other hand, Lebanese Prime Minister Omar
Karami is expected to unveil a long-awaited new government on Monday to lead the
country into the election, saying the new government will draw up a draft law
organizing polls.
Work on the draft is expected to take weeks,
forcing a delay in the polls, political sources say, adding the opposition wants
elections as soon as possible to capitalize on public sympathy after the
assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.Pro-government loyalists
want a delay of the elections in the hope that public fury will die down and
divisions will appear among the ranks of a disparate opposition.
Hariri was killed in a bomb blast on Feb. 14,
which the Lebanese opposition have accused Syria and the pro-Syrian authorities
of being responsible for.
Under US-led pressure and popular protests after
the Feb. 14killing, Syria has pledged to withdraw its troops from Lebanon by
April 30 and the Karami government had to resign though he was reappointed as
the prime minister by President Emile Lahoud. Also on Sunday, tens of thousands
of Lebanese people from Christian and Muslim regions across the country took
part in a five-km (3.2-mile) race in central Beirut to launch festivities to
commemorate the 30th anniversary of the start of Lebanon's civil war which began
on April 13. Enditem |