Lebanese Christian leader: alliance with Hezbollah imperiled

By SARAH EL DEEB
Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — The head of Lebanon’s largest Christian parliamentary bloc says a 15-year-old alliance with the country’s powerful Shiite group Hezbollah was no longer working and must evolve. The Sunday televised speech by Gebran Bassil, who heads the Free Patriotic Movement, signaled an unprecedented level of frustration with Hezbollah and suggested the 2006 alliance credited with helping maintain peace in the small country was in jeopardy. It comes amid a devastating economic crisis and also months ahead of critical parliamentary elections, in which his party is expecting tough competition. Undoing the alliance with Hezbollah would cost him more votes in the elections scheduled for May.