=President of the National Dialogue Party, MP Fouad Makhzoumi, accompanied by Political Adviser Dr. Carol Zouein, visited Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rai in Bkerke. They discussed the general situation in Lebanon.
Makhzoumi said the visit was intended to extend his congratulations to His Beatitude on the festive season, expressing his hope that the year would bring goodness to Christians in particular and to the Lebanese people in general, adding that “we are a people who deserve to live.”
Makhzoumi considered the previous day’s development concerning the electoral law a victory for the Lebanese people, expatriates, and the October 17 Revolution against the corrupt authorities that had governed the country from the Taif Agreement until today. On the other hand, he described the Constitutional Council’s failure to reach a decision on the appeal as a major setback for the judiciary, stressing that a country cannot be built if judicial interference continues on this scale.
Makhzoumi stressed that Lebanon’s people were now at a crossroads. In 2018, he explained, the Lebanese pound still had value, bank accounts were accessible, and medicine, electricity, and fuel were available. Today, however, the political class had robbed the Lebanese people of their life savings, their history, their present, and their future, while denying them the ability to live with dignity in their own country.
He added that citizens therefore faced only two choices: either allow the corrupt political class to remain in power, thereby permitting it to destroy what remains of the foundations of life for future generations, just as it had devastated the present and their lives, or bring about change.
Makhzoumi affirmed that the elections would take place before May 21, but stressed that what mattered most was for the people to take to the streets and bring about change. “Change is within reach,” he said.
He noted that the current ruling establishment was fearful and apprehensive about the elections and their outcome. He explained that there were two opposing camps: a corrupt establishment that followed the dictates of Hezbollah’s illegal arms, which he said protected corruption under the equation of “weapons in exchange for corruption,” while also interfering in the judiciary and state institutions; and a new group of revolutionaries and advocates of sovereignty seeking change.
Makhzoumi emphasized that change was in the hands of the citizens, stressing that it was unacceptable to allow this corrupt political class to remain in power, as the Lebanese people deserved far better than the current situation.