Beirut (AsiaNews) – Antoine Ghanem was killed by a bomb placed in his car at 5.20 pm (GMT + 3:00) in the Sin-El-Fil residential complex near Beirut’s Hotel Metropolitain; seven other people were killed with the 64-year-old Maronite Phalange (Kataeb) Party MP representing Baabda-Aley. Another 20 were wounded.
Ghanem is the second Phalange lawmaker to die during this legislature. Last November 21, Minister Pierre Gemayel was killed in an explosion. Last June Sunni lawmaker Walid Hido was also killed. Many pro-government, anti-Syrian members of parliament have received threats as well.
Druze MP Wael Abou Fahour told AsiaNews by phone that “with Antoine Ghanem’s murder the ruling parliamentary majority loses another Christian MP from a very important region.” He insisted that the electoral process must go on “to break the catastrophic impasse in which the president finds himself.”
Lebanon’s constitution reserves the highest office in the land to the Maronite community, but Christians are divided over whom to choose. Some in the opposition would like to do away with the exiting confessional system altogether. But for many others Syria is the culprit.
Former President Amin Gemayel has condemned the assassination and convened a meeting of the Phalange Political Bureau.
Antoine Ghanem is the sixth lawmaker to be murdered in a series that began with former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and continued with Basel Flayhan, Gebran Tueini, Pierre Gemayel and Walid Eido.
Amin Gemayel appealed to the international community to help bring this cycle of violence to a stop, reiterating the majority’s firm intention to see through the struggle against the country’s enemies.
Opposition leader General Michel Aoun condemned the crime, expressing concern that the majority and the Geagea-Hariri-Jumblatt alliance might use the incident to their political advantage.
A member of the Maronite community, Antoine Ghanem was born in Baabda province in 1943. An attorney by profession he was married to Mouna Nehme with whom he had four children.
A member of the Phalange, allied to Walid Jumblatt’s parliamentary bloc, he was elected for the first time in 2000.
His murder leaves the Lebanese National Assembly with only 127 members. This means the majority needed to elect a new president has been further cut to the advantage of the opposition bloc.