BEIRUT: Future Movement candidate in the upcoming Tripoli by-election Dima Jamali has welcomed Ashraf Rifi's decision to support her candidacy rather than run against her.
Jamali described Rifi’s recent meeting with Prime Minister and Future Movement leader Saad Hariri as “a meeting that gives hopes to [Tripoli],” speaking on an episode of Mustaqbal Web’s “The Elevator” aired Saturday.
During Rifi’s meeting with Hariri Tuesday, the former justice minister and head of the Internal Security Forces announced that he would not be running in the by-election, instead choosing to back Jamali.
Rifi was once a Sunni ally of Hariri’s, but later fell out of grace with the prime minister, mounting two separate electoral challenges against the Future bloc, in 2016 and 2018. Despite an upset win in the 2016 Tripoli municipal elections, Rifi failed to win any parliamentary seats in 2018, when Jamali was elected to one of the Sunni seats in the city.