President Michel Aoun on Tuesday said that the “use of electoral money by some candidates” requires the intervention of the Supervisory Commission for Elections and the judiciary.

“All measures have been taken to hold the elections in an atmosphere of transparency and freedom, and the increase in the nominations of women is a positive issue which we hope would improve further in the next elections,” Aoun told a delegation from the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).

On Monday, May 9, 32 students from eight private and public schools across Lebanon participated in a contest celebrating Europe Day, as 2022 marks the European Year of the Youth.

Ambassador of the European Union to Lebanon, Ralph Tarraf, has delivered a speech marking Europe Day, in which he also tackled the situation in Lebanon.

Below is the full text of the speech as received by Naharnet:

President Michel Aoun welcomed Tuesday the participation of delegates from the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) in observing the May 15 parliamentary polls.

Last month, a delegation from the European Union election observers wrapped up a six-day visit to Lebanon during which they discussed the deployment of observers ahead of the upcoming May 15 parliamentary elections in the crisis-hit country.

Dozens of Internal Security Forces retirees stormed Tuesday the premises of the Interior Ministry, as Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi refused to meet them and listen to their demands, media reports said.

The retired ISF members protested deteriorating living conditions, as the Lebanese pound reached Tuesday LL27,000 low against the dollar.

The May 15 parliamentary polls will be a "political July War" and Hizbullah “will practice political resistance in the elections in order to preserve the military resistance,” Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Monday.

“Those who want to defend Lebanon, extract its oil resources and protect its waters must vote for the resistance and its allies,” Nasrallah told a Hizbullah electoral rally via video link.

The U.S. and Australian embassies in Lebanon have issued warnings to their citizens and tensions have surged in some areas amid reports that supporters of Hizbullah and the Amal Movement intend to stage a scooter rally in Beirut and its suburbs at 5pm Monday, media reports said.

The pro-Hizbullah al-Akhbar newspaper reported that the U.S. embassy asked its citizens in Lebanon to “avoid areas witnessing rallies and gatherings.”

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Monday said that voting for the FPM in the parliamentary elections is equivalent to voting for one’s “dignity.”

“The FPM has been and will always be your dignity. Vote for it,” Bassil said in a tweet.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Monday lauded Lebanese expats for “performing their national and constitutional duty” in the expat polls that were held on May 6 and 8.

“I thank everyone who took the trouble to travel and cross thousands of miles to reaffirm the honesty and genuineness of their belonging to Lebanon, the country whose borders are the entire universe,” Berri added.

Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi launched Monday a new electronic platform for entering and sorting votes.

The new platform will be used for the first time in Lebanon in the May 15 parliamentary elections, next Sunday.