Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblat said on Tuesday that the Syrian regime took the failure to abolish political confessionalism in Lebanon as an excuse to remain in the country, adding the bombing that targeted MP Marwan Hamadeh was the first warning to ex-PM Rafik Hariri.
“The Taef Accord had called for abolishing the political sectarian system but this has not been achieved,” Jumblat told the Special Tribunal for Lebanon on the second day of his testimony.
“The failure to abolish political confessionalism was an excuse for the Syrians to stay in Lebanon,” he said.
Jumblat reiterated that he was allied with the Syrian regime, but following the extension of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud's term in 2004, “I said enough.”
“It was time for Lebanon to become an independent state,” he told the STL.