Lebanese PM rules out Hezbollah alliance in May election, rejects ‘sectarian box’

BEIRUT – Anadolu Agency

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has ruled out an alliance with Hezbollah in the parliamentary elections set for May.

“We are not a movement that accepts people who put themselves into a racist and sectarian box, lock it and then throw the key away,” Hariri said on Feb. 14, dismissing any possibility of an alliance.

Hariri’s remarks came during his address to the gathering on the 13th anniversary of the death of Rafiq Hariri, who was assassinated in a February 2005 bombing in the Al-Bayyal Complex in Beirut.

Noting an allegiance to the 1989 Taif Agreement, which ended Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, Hariri underscored his rejection of foreign tutelage.

Lebanon is set to hold parliamentary polls on May 8.

The scheduled elections will be the first since parliament elected Michel Aoun as Lebanon’s president in late 2016 after the post had stood vacant for more than two years.