BEIRUT -- Lebanon's parliamentary polls due next spring will be held as scheduled regardless of "what may happen," senior officials have affirmed.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said in a statement published on Friday that concerns on destiny of the polls, expressed by some local officials, were unjustified, and praised efforts that have been exerted by Interior Minister Ziad Baroud to maintain law and order throughout the country.

Technically, if the elections date fell and some citizens lacked identity cards, necessary to cast ballots, the authorities would look for solutions to ensure that all nationals would be able to show up at the ballot stations to fulfill their duties, he added.

For his part, Baroud said in a statement that the government was keen on holding the elections as scheduled within the constitutional mandate, between April 20 and June 29, and affirmed the great necessity to maintain local security when citizens go to the polling stations.

President Michel Suleiman has affirmed that the polls will be held as scheduled on the single-district-single-constituency basis.

Some local officials have voiced serious concerns that the election may not be held as due, as a result of the deep rifts across the political spectrum and forecast security incidents that may coincide with proceedings of the international prosecution into the case of assassination the former prime minister Rafic Al-Harir, due in March.

Lebanon, since the assassination of Al-Hariri, more than three years ago, has witnessed a spate of security incidents that claimed scores of lives and inflicted various other forms of damage to the country. -Kuna