Businessman Bahaa Hariri confirmed, today, that “The path of the martyr Rafik Hariri must not be abandoned and must be continued, and the differences in politics with my brother Saad Hariri are great, but the family has its sanctity”.
Bahaa Hariri considered, in an interview with the “Voice of the People” program on “Sawt Beirut International” that “a large part of Martyr Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s career was not implemented”.
“The situation in the country is very dangerous, deposits amounting to tens of billions have been lost by depositors, and the World Bank is talking about a crisis that is among the worst in the world”, he followed.
Bahaa Hariri revealed that the explosion of August 4th was what prompted him to engage in political work in Lebanon. He said: “The pain I felt on August 4 took me 17 years back to the moment of my father’s assasination, and I felt that it was not possible for me to sit by watching”.
He followed: “My pledge to the Lebanese is to get the country out of the crisis, and I will do my best for that. We are working on a cross-sectarian political movement, and we have proven this through Sawa Li Lubnan and Sawt Beirut International”.
Bahaa Hariri affirmed that “getting out of the crisis is possible, the important thing is that there is a real will, in both Muslims and Christians, to get out of the crisis”.
“Lebanon, with its constitution, is part of an Arab body, and we, as Lebanese, must reform the relationship with the Arabs, I call on the Lebanese people to make a different choice in the parliamentary elections”.
He said: “We have developed an integrated plan in Sawa movement to reform the economy, which is based on the four pillars of the banking sector that must be reformed, criminal scrutiny that must be carried out, along with tourism, and both, the education and health sector”.
He followed: “We must also implement the Taif Agreement and separate religion from the state, in order to bring Lebanon into the 21st century, as we must also reform the judiciary and eliminate corruption”, stressing that “anti-corruption laws in Lebanon are dormant because corruption beat everything”.
Bahaa Hariri considered that “We must seek to strengthen the Lebanese army and the internal security forces, and there was a Saudi initiative to help the army with 3 and a half billion dollars, but with Lebanon’s foreign policy we lost this assistance”.
“We, in Sawa, are restructuring the movement and using the most important consultants in parallel to studying all the files through specialists and we are working seriously and those who belong to the movement are from all sects and from all Lebanese regions”.
Bahaa Hariri stressed that “My candidacy for the elections is not an important matter, and the Sawa movement is not a project for Bahaa Hariri, but rather for Lebanon, and the goal is to complete the path of martyr Prime Minister Rafik Hariri”.
Hariri considered that “the regime that turned a blind eye to the weapon is the one that occupies the country, and corruption has spread in the country”.
He followed: “We came to say that our project is to build institutions alongside with the implementation of Taif agreement. If the Sawa movement enters Parliament, it will not cooperate with the existing system, because the Lebanese situation is in great danger and we ask the citizens, as they cooperated with Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, to cooperate with us in our project”, stressing that “the idea of a quadripartite alliance is forbidden for me and if the Sawa bloc enters parliament, we will not partner with Hezbollah and the latter is in an international retrograde situation that we cannot deal with”.
Bahaa Hariri considered that the elections will take place on time, “and the change will not come by violence, but rather through election boxes”, affirming: “I did not come for the sake of a particular position, I came to help Lebanon”.
Baha Hariri stressed that “Safi Kalou’s statements are as if they were mine, he represented me politically. We are a force for change, and in 18 months we have tried to prove that as much as possible”.
“One of the biggest disasters for Lebanon’s economic reputation was the bond payments, the situation is very difficult, and may God protect us if we don’t make the right choice in the upcoming elections”, he followed.