Lebanon's Maronite Bishops Promote the Vote

BEIRUT, Lebanon, MAY 30, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Lebanon’s Maronite bishops have appealed to the country’s voters to go to the polls and vote.

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Monsignor Abou Jaoude, vicar general of the Maronite patriarch, laid out in a press conference the objectives that future lawmakers should pursue in order to reach full sovereignty and social justice, reported AsiaNews.

“Choosing a member of the National Assembly is a national and moral responsibility and a contribution to transferring power to the right people,” he said last week.

“This is why citizens must listen to their conscience when they cast their vote so that elected officials can be free and responsible, independent of personal considerations and interests,” he added.

Monsignor Jaoude then came back to the issue of the electoral law and said that “it was not advisable that each community choose its representatives and that it was unjust that 85% of lawmakers are in ridings in which the majority belongs to one given community.”

The vicar general suggested several objectives for would-be elected officials. They include an independent judiciary, the liberation of political prisoners, the deployment of the army over the entire national territory and new relations with Syria based on the recognition of each other’s sovereignty.

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ZENIT Staff

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