BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri warned in remarks published Tuesday that excluding Hezbollah from the upcoming Cabinet could lead to the destruction of the country.
“Let it be clear that a Cabinet cannot be formed without Hezbollah,” Berri told As-Safir daily newspaper, adding that he takes the veto of the March 14 coalition against Hezbollah’s participation in the next government as “personal.”
“I consider the rejection of Hezbollah portfolios in the next Cabinet as directed against me personally,” he said.
Berri also described calls from March 14 to exclude Hezbollah from the Cabinet as “futile and impossible” and said “those who are calling for the isolation of Hezbollah are pushing toward Lebanon’s destruction.”
The speaker said that he has informed Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam that the current delicate stage requires an all-inclusive government that joins the country’s political rivals.
“Just like I reject Hezbollah’s exclusion, I also reject the exclusion of [Patriotic Movement leader Michel] Aoun and the Future Movement and any other party,” he said.
The formation of a new government by Salam after the resignation of the government of now caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has been stalled for over three years over differences between the March 8 and March 14 rival camps.
March 14 has called for a government of non-political partisans while Hezbollah insists on being represented in a new government that joins political forces.
Salam’s latest proposal was a 24-member Cabinet line-up in which a third of the shares are each allocated to the March 14 and March 8 coalitions, and a third to centrists.
