Source: Al-Manar TV, 23-01-2009

Less than five months ahead of the scheduled Lebanese parliamentary elections, believed by the different factions to be "fateful" and "decisive," the battle seems to have already started!
Indeed, the Lebanese, who are already "deeply" divided into two distinct blocs over the vision of the country's face, are set to witness for a period of four months one of the most fierce battles they have never thought of.

In the "battle," all "weapons" seem to be authorized and legalized. Verbal disputes and political provocations come at the first place. But, and in a "suspicious" phenomenon, "sectarian incitement" also showed up here and there.

While the different political blocs stress that the map of "alliances" wouldn't be changed for electoral purposes and rule out any "effect" of the "reconciliations" taking place in the electoral scene, it was remarkable how the "yesterday's allies" were the first to "launch" the "battle" over the concept of the so-called "neutral bloc."

Indeed, and according to the head of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc MP Michel Aoun, "neutrality" cannot exist in politics, especially in a country like Lebanon. "Being neutral has neither color nor taste," Aoun asserted more than once. On Thursday, he said that "the neutral bloc is an alias for the (US backed) March 14 coalition," stressing that he will "run for elections through a reform- and change-oriented program." The General emphasized that the battle wouldn't be easy at all, but pointed to his readiness to all possibilities. "Any line that is not ours would be an opponent in the elections," he declared.

But MP Michel Murr, who was once one of Aoun's bloc's members, felt that he was "provoked" by the General's refusal of the "neutral bloc" and his "attempt to undermine" it. Thus, he launched a verbal assault against Aoun, telling him that independent candidates in the constituencies of Metn, Baabda, Kesrouan and Jbeil (Byblos) "have color and taste because they enjoy popularity that scares off those criticizing them," in an apparent allusion to the General.

"Voters are uprising against their past experience and would hold accountable those who had claimed to have color and taste. In the forthcoming elections voters would clearly differentiate between those who had blocked the state and independent candidates who back the state and its institutions," Murr told reporters at his residence after receiving the ambassadors of Britain and Greece.

Meanwhile, some calls are still delivered to guarantee the elections would come as democratic and fair as they should. In this context, Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri reiterated on Friday that "the upcoming elections should be a national and political step that is based on a political project that preserves Lebanon's situation and its Arab identity."

While receiving municipal delegations from Hasbaya and Marjayoun districts at his residence in Msayleh, Berri said that "the southerners have chosen a political project that restored Lebanon's pride, and the liberty of its land and citizens." He added that the citizens of the south were "fully committed to the practice of democracy... according to constitutional norms."
"The ballot boxes will decide," Berri concluded.