Hezbollah official Sheikh Nabil Kaouk. (Credit: Mountasser Abdallah/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Hezbollah officials have criticized the process by which Najib Mikati’s government approved the draft budget Thursday, but assured that they do not intend to block upcoming cabinet meetings.
Here’s what we know:
• “The amended draft budget was not presented to the ministers during the session [Thursday] and some questions that were asked about several clauses were not decided or were not answered,” Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's No. 2, was quoted by the party's al-Manar channel as saying Saturday night.
• “A number of outstanding items that needed a vote to rectify the situation were not put to a vote, and there was just a superficial discussion close to a chaotic, off-the-cuff conversation in cabinet,” he added. “During this conversation, the prime minister came out to announce that the budget was adopted without the ministers realizing that the meeting was over,” he added, calling the process “unconstitutional.”
• Another Hezbollah official, Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, said Sunday that while the pro-Iran group is “anxious to see the government meetings continue,” Hezbollah “challenged the unacceptable manner, both in form and substance, in which the draft budget was approved.” Kaouk was speaking at a rally in the southern Lebanese village of Chehabieh.
• “We have reservations and important changes on the clauses of the text, which we will work to implement during the debate on the budget in Parliament,” he added.
• The accelerated cabinet approval of the draft budget Thursday and the approval of three administrative appointments at the request of President Michel Aoun had irritated the Shiite due of Hezbollah and Amal. According to the daily al-Akhbar, close to the pro-Iranian party, “the budget blows up the relationship between Mikati and Hezbollah.”
• Some accuse the Hezbollah-Amal duo of political one-upmanship, as neither party in power is willing to assume the consequences of a budget prepared by Finance Minister Youssef Khalil (who is close to Amal), which would have catastrophic repercussions on a population of which three-quarters already lives below the poverty line.
• Kaouk stressed in this context that “in the face of financial difficulties of citizens, it is unacceptable that the budget contains clauses that impoverish the population.”
• On Thursday, Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram, who is close to Hezbollah, said that the draft budget “was not voted on legally.” Sources close to the prime minister defended themselves on Friday evening against these accusations, saying that the draft budget was adopted according to the rules.
• During the meeting devoted to the adoption of the draft budget 2022, cabinet also approved several appointments, including to the Military Council. This move has raised the ire of the ministers affiliated with Amal and Hezbollah, without endangering the Mikati cabinet, which has just emerged from a crisis that prevented it from meeting for more than three months. From an informed source, L’Orient-Le Jour has learned Finance Minister Youssef Khalil will not sign the decree relating to these appointments — a refusal that may again raise tensions again within the cabinet.
• In an interview with the daily al-Akhbar, Aoun reacted to the criticism of Hezbollah and Amal, calling the Shiite ministers’ reaction “shameful.”
• “What happened will not affect the government, which will continue its meetings. There will certainly be no return to the boycott," Aoun predicted.