Puneet Varma (Editor)

Lebanese Option Party

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Leader
  
Ahmad Kamel El-Assaad

Political position
  
Centre-right/Centre

Headquarters
  
Beirut, Lebanon

National affiliation
  
March 14 Alliance

Founded
  
2007 (Movement) 2010 (Party)

Ideology
  
Secularism Moderate Shia Islamism Liberalism Economic liberalism

Lebanese Option Party (LOP) (Arabic: حزب الإنتماء اللبناني , in English Lebanese Option, French L'Option libanaise ‎‎) is a Lebanese secular and an economically liberal party, which is also a predominantly Shia political movement established in 2007. It is headed by Ahmad Kamel El-Assaad (Arabic: أحمد كامل الأسعد‎‎), the son of the former speaker of the Lebanese Parliament Kamel El-Assaad and the grandson of the former speaker of the Parliament Ahmad El-Assaad (Arabic: أحمد بك الأسعد‎‎).

Lebanese Option strongly protests the political hegemony of the two movements Hezbollah and Amal Movement on the Shi'ite community in Lebanon. Its platform is more in line with the Lebanese majority March 14 Alliance and greatly opposed to mainstream Shi'ite movements allied with the March 8 Alliance, namely Hezbollah and Amal Movement. But the Lebanese Option is not an official part of the March 14 Alliance and keeps an independent secular status.

In early June 2013, a Lebanese Option activist, and head of the party's student wing Hashem Salman was shot dead during a protest outside the Iranian Embassy in Beirut. The protest, organized by the LOP, criticized Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian Civil War. In mid-October 2013, its leader, Ahmad El-Assaad, called for Lebanon to cut ties with Bashar El-Assaad's government and the expulsion of its ambassador.

References

Lebanese Option Party Wikipedia