Ending a three-week hiatus, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri is set to meet with President Michel Aoun Monday to present him with a draft Cabinet lineup amid lingering differences over the naming of Christian ministers, an official source said Sunday.
“Hariri will meet President Aoun tomorrow [Monday] to submit a draft lineup of an 18-member Cabinet of nonpartisan specialists,” the official source told The Daily Star. “The fact that Hariri has decided to visit Baabda Palace after a three-week hiatus means there is a new element in the Cabinet formation process,” the source added, without elaborating.
#Lebanon’s designated Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who was renamed prime minister a year after stepping down under pressure from the October 2019 protests, is still struggling to form a government a month after being re-appointed - by @waeltaleb23 https://t.co/pO4NyY89kr pic.twitter.com/7uZ7sYiPzt
— Radio EastMed (@RadioEastmed) November 29, 2020
The Cabinet formation process has been at a complete standstill for three weeks in the absence of meetings between Aoun and Hariri as the two leaders remain at odds over the naming of Christian ministers in the next government and the adoption of unified criteria in the formation.
Hariri’s attempts to form a new Cabinet have also hit snags over the rival parties’ horse-trading over key ministerial posts.
Disagreement over the naming of Christian ministers has raised fears of the proposed Cabinet lineup being rejected by Aoun, a political source told The Daily Star. It was not known how Aoun would react to Hariri’s proposed Cabinet list.
During their last meeting at Baabda Palace last month, Hariri came with an incomplete Cabinet list, naming by himself seven Christian ministers and left the president with the remaining two Christian ministers to name for the Interior and Defense portfolios, the source said. “But President Aoun rejected the proposal,” the source said.
Backed by France and regional powers, Hariri has been struggling to form an 18-member Cabinet of nonpartisan experts to implement a series of structural reforms outlined in the French initiative designed to lift Lebanon out of its worst economic and financial crisis since the 1975-90 Civil War.
The expected presentation of Hariri’s draft Cabinet lineup, his first since he was designated to form a new government on Oct. 22, comes amid mounting international pressure on Lebanon’s rival political factions to act quickly to form a new credible government to enact reforms.
The latest call for the swift formation of a new government was issued at a Dec. 2 international conference to drum up humanitarian aid to Lebanon following the massive Aug. 4 explosion that devastated Beirut’s port and destroyed large swaths of the capital.
France and the United Nations, which organized the video conference in Paris, vowed to keep providing humanitarian aid to Lebanon but urged the country's leaders to form a new government to implement long-overdue reforms deemed essential to releasing billions of dollars in promised international assistance for the cash-strapped country, which is teetering on the verge of a total economic collapse. It was the second aid conference for Lebanon since the port blast.
Hariri’s reported insistence on naming all Cabinet members has put him on a collision course with both Aoun and the Free Patriotic Movement’s Strong Lebanon bloc which, with 24 MPs, is the biggest bloc in Parliament with the largest Christian representation.
The planned Aoun-Hariri meeting comes days after the president called for a greater role by the caretaker Cabinet in dealing with the country’s deteriorating economic conditions, in the clearest sign yet that the formation of a new government was not imminent.
It also comes amid fresh political escalation by the FPM, which accused Hariri of dragging his feet over the Cabinet formation.
“The prime minister-designate bears ethical and national responsibility for the procrastination in the Cabinet formation. It is unacceptable to link the formation to a change in the circumstances and pressure,” said a statement issued after an electronic meeting of the FPM’s Political Council chaired by FPM leader MP Gebran Bassil Saturday, clearly referring to regional and international developments.
The statement reiterated the FPM’s demand for “adherence to unified criteria and principles” in the Cabinet formation. “This is the safety rope for the prime minister-designate because it preserves balances, respects the rules and achieves the national goal of setting up a government of specialists to implement the required reforms, and whose ministers are efficient and capable of production,” the statement said.
It stressed the need to “abide by the Constitution in the [Cabinet] formation process by respecting the presidency’s position and powers without [any attempt] to undercut or transcend them.”
But Future Movement MP Mohammad Hajjar dismissed the FPM’s accusations against Hariri.
“These accusations are baseless. Prime Minister Hariri has been striving to quickly form a Cabinet of nonpartisan specialists to deliver reforms in line with the French initiative to rescue the country,” Hajjar told The Daily Star Sunday. “Those seeking quotas in the Cabinet formation must stop this act in order to facilitate the formation,” he added.
Since his designation to form a new government, Hariri has imposed a blanket of secrecy and silence on the Cabinet formation process in a bid to accelerate the process.
Lebanon has remained without a fully functioning government since caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab submitted his Cabinet’s resignation on Aug. 10 in the aftermath of the port blast.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
