BEIRUT, March 3 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri on Saturday assured all parties that the national elections will be held as scheduled, al-Joumhouria daily reported.

Failure to hold the elections would "wreck the country and make it lose its connections with other states," Berri told his visitors.

"I say decisively and definitively that the elections will take place, and there is no force in the world to stop or disrupt it," he concluded.

Lebanon will hold its first national referendum in nine years on May 6.

For the first time, Lebanese nationals living overseas will be able to cast ballots in early voting.

The Lebanese parliament has postponed elections several times over security reasons. Its mandate was supposed to expire in 2013, but lawmakers have since adopted several extensions, with the last one in June 2017 for another 11 months.