Sheikh Qassem: 18 year olds should be allowed to vote

Source: Nowlebanon.com, 9-10-2008
Hizbullah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said that 18 year olds should be allowed to vote in the 2009 parliamentary. "The Loyalty to the Resistance bloc will present a draft law to the parliament to lower the voting age to 18, and will lead a media campaign to implement this article," he said.
In a ceremony on Thursday, Qassem said that it was essential that calm prevail in Lebanon during the run-up to the elections, adding that reconciliation was the natural result of calm. "We have never said that reconciliation was for the elections," he said, "rather its goal is to ban militia weapons and sectarianism, and to stop the poisoned media discourse. If anybody thinks that we encourage reconciliation for electoral alliances, he is an illusionist."