Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday acknowledged his party and its allies had lost their parliamentary majority in elections but said no single group had taken it, in his first televised speech since Sunday's election
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"Unlike the situation in parliament in 2018, no political group can claim a majority," he said.
Hezbollah and its allies scored 62 seats during Sunday polls, according to a Reuters tally, losing a majority they secured in 2018, when they and their allies won 71 seats. The results mark a blow for Hezbollah, though Nasrallah declared the results
"No political camp in the country can claim to have the parliamentary majority. We are rather before political blocs and independents and the interest of Lebanon and the Lebanese people might be in what happened," Nasrallah said in a televised address to his supporters on Wednesday night.
"The size of the economic and social crises in the country does not allow any camp to address them on its own, even if it wins the majority, and when no one has the majority this means that everyone is responsible," he explained.
Trying to mitigate reports in Arab media that Hezbollah's opponents now have the upper hand in parliament, he noted, "It is not true that the majority has shifted from one place to another. ... [but] bickering "will not lead to a result except for stoking tensions in the country.
"What's needed is for the country to calm down and to give priority to the files that were present before the elections, which are the subject of people's pain. This can only be addressed through partnership and cooperation regardless of rivalry," Nasrallah said.
Clinging to the "victory" narrative, Hezbollah's leader assured supporters that election results "achieved a very big victory and we must be proud of it in light of the battle's circumstances. ... The resistance and its allies have a strong and big presence in the new parliament."
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah wields enormous political power in Lebanon, where it enjoys the support of President Michel Aoun and virtually controls parliament. The Shiite terrorist group is Iran's largest proxy in the Middle East and it is pivotal to its efforts to gain a greater foothold in the region.
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