BEIRUT - Leaders of political parties, doctors, lawyers, businessmen… Sixty five people met in Beirut for the General Assembly of the “Lebanese Green Party”, formed in June 2004 under the slogan: “the earth knows no religion”.

This three-hour assembly was an occasion to present the pact and the internal structure of the party and to elect an executive board that includes about twenty persons, who elected Philippe skaff as President of the party, Nada Zaarour as Vice-President, Oussama Safa as Secretary General, and Sawsan Bou Fakhreddine as Secretary of financial affairs.

The party is willing to change the environmental policy of the government and particularly insists on the importance of the protection of forests in Lebanon and the positive evolution of the water quality.

MP Akram Chehayeb from the Socialist Progressist Party attended the reunion but refrained from giving a speech during the opening session; he just gave some remarks during the discussion regarding the party’s pact. “The party should be an element of pressure and not an element of change, and it should not attempt to reach power through parliamentary elections”, stated Chehayeb during his intervention. Moreover, Chehayeb declared to Al-Akhbar daily that there is an agreement between the founders that bans them from running for parliamentary elections in the next ten years.

The Secretary General of the party, Oussama Safa, presented the balance sheet of the Green Party entitled “toward a new economic and social contract for Lebanon”. He also said that the objective of the party is to adopt the social market economy. As for the party’s members, they think that the development policies can be applied in a better way in Lebanon if the social conflicts and the confessional tensions end.