Saudis Spent $200m on Lebanon Elections but to No Avail: Gen. Soleimani

Major General Qassemi Soleimani has described the recent Lebanon elections as a referendum, saying the votes were held in a situation where Hezbollah was being accused of interfering in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and the region.

Fars News Agency quoted him as saying that the Arab countries, Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Saudi Arabia and the countries with ignorant rulers put the most peaceful and most prestigious Islamic movement in the list of terrorist groups.

“They put the names that bring joy to the heart of Muslims, such as Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, next to the terrorists. He is the man who defeated the most important enemy of the Arab world [Israel].”

The commander of the IRGC Quds Force further referred to the propaganda campaign of the enemies, saying that everyone who was next to the Hezbollah movement, both Sunni and non-Sunni, was called a mercenary of Iran.”

He said Saudi Arabia spent $200 million in such a small country like Lebanon and that is not easy to be done in a short period of time. “But what happened? For the first time in Lebanon, the winner of the majority of the votes was a person attributed to Hezbollah and, of course, Shiites.”

General Soleimani also stated that Hezbollah won 74 seats out of 128 Lebanese parliamentary seats and turned into the Lebanese government which was a great victory.

Lebanon’s parliamentary elections had been delayed three times since 2009 due to the crisis in neighbouring Syria as well as disagreements over the new electoral law. The elections were finally held on May 6, 2018, under a new electoral law passed in June 2017 after years of wrangling.