BEIRUT: Hezbollah’s Baalbek-Hermel MP Nawar Saheli denounced Sunday what he called “flagrant interference” by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly in internal Lebanese affairs when, he said, she demanded that “the forthcoming elections be held on the basis of the 1960 law.”

“We in Lebanon do not accept [foreign] ambassadors or ministers to interfere in our internal affairs.

She [Connelly] should have applied the law in her country,” Saheli told a sports event organized by Hezbollah in the northern Bekaa Valley town of Al-Ain.

He urged those within the March 14 alliance who are keen on Lebanon’s sovereignty to ask the U.S. ambassador to respect diplomatic rules and not interfere in internal Lebanese affairs.

Earlier this month, Connelly told reporters after meeting Speaker Nabih Berri that parliamentary polls should be held on time regardless of whether politicians reach a consensus on a new electoral law.

“We encourage Lebanon to hold its elections on time,” she said. Lebanese politicians have been at loggerheads over which electoral law will govern the 2013 polls.