Jumblat Urges ‘Political Humility’ in Dealing with Pending Issues

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat hoped on Monday that the government would tackle the people’s concerns without preconditions.

He urged in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anabaa magazine political powers to exercise “some humility” in tackling pending issues at cabinet.

He also called for a “radical solution to the spoiled food scandal by exposing all those involved without discrimination.”

The MP added that the citizens believe these issues to be more pressing than empty proposals of the adoption of proportional representation for the electoral law or others demanding reform.

Jumblat hoped that the principles of the Arab Spring would be applied in Lebanon in order to end political sectarianism.

“This would help establish a modern state that does not discriminate between the people,” he noted.

“This is the real reform, unlike some side that are calling for proportional representation that is only aimed at eliminating the other given the very critical regional and local situation,” he stressed.

Members of the March 8 camp have advocated the adoption of proportional representation for the electoral law.

Jumblat has criticized this proposal, with Minister Ghazi Aridi saying that it is aimed at limiting the Druze leader’s political weight.

Addressing the Syrian crisis, the MP said: “The Syrian people’s massive sacrifices led the United Nations Security Council to send international observers to ensure that U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s ceasefire plan is implemented.”

He warned that delving in the details of the plan and disregarding the Arab League imitative “will have catastrophic results.”

“Any settlement with the Syria regime serves as a blow to the sacrifices of the Syrian people and an indirect recognition by the international community that it can disregard people’s political rights as long as dictatorships practice oppression,” he stated.