Elias Bou Saab meets with Nabih Berri on Saturday at Ain al-Tineh. (Credit: Hassan Ibrahim/Lebanese Parliament Flickr account)
A busy political week kicks off today in Lebanon. On the agenda: the election of parliamentary committee members during a Parliament session set to take place on Tuesday at 11 a.m., and later in the week in Baabda binding parliamentary consultations will be held to appoint a prime minister tasked with forming a new government.
Officially, the new cabinet will have a lifespan of a few months, until the election of a new president in the fall, as Michel Aoun’s term expires at the end of October. In the event of an impasse in reaching agreement on a new president, causing a presidential vacuum, which is not unprecedented in Lebanon, it will be up to this government to exercise the prerogatives of the head of state.
Aoun is waiting for the elections of the members of the parliamentary committees before convening the MPs elected on May 15 for the binding consultations on cabinet formation, a source close to the Presidential Palace told L'Orient-Le Jour.
On the eve of the plenary session to elect committees, the various protagonists still have not made clear their intentions. However, it is expected that the Lebanese Forces will work to retain the chairmanship of the Administration and Justice Committee, headed by Georges Adwan, MP from the Chouf. For its part, the Free Patriotic Movement may hold on to the chairmanship of the Finance and Budget Committee, which has been headed for several years by Ibrahim Kanaan, MP from Metn. But no decision has been taken on this plan, the FPM’s communications officer, Rindala Jabbour, said when asked by L’Orient-Le Jour.
On the other hand, the 13 MPs from opposition groups are preparing to enter the battle of the committees, according to a statement issued on Saturday. “We aspire to be part of all committees, but the most important are obviously those of Administration and Justice, Finance and Budget, and Human Rights.” said Halime Kaakour, MP for the Chouf. She added that “the coordination bloc” gathering the 13 MPs will submit the names of its candidates Monday to the General Secretariat of Parliament.
Which cabinet?
After the committees, we will move on to the appointment of a prime minister-designate.
The aforementioned source close to Baabda reports that there will be an “attempt to hold parliamentary consultations at the end of the week, or next week at the latest.”
While waiting for those consultations, contacts to clear the ground for a broad agreement are already underway, in order to speed up the process.
According to information obtained by L’Orient-Le Jour, Hezbollah is working to keep Najib Mikati in the Serail. This option is opposed by the Lebanese Forces, whose leader Samir Geagea, advocates a majority government that should not, according to him, be headed by the outgoing prime minister.
“We have never voted for Mikati. And we will only support the one who will be able to put in place a team that will meet our expectations, that is to say, capable of initiating the process of reforms and recovering the sovereignty of the state,” an LF official told L’Orient-Le Jour — a point on which Meerab converges with the parliamentarians of Oct. 17, 2019, protest movement.
“We are against the renewal of Najib Mikati. What matters to us is the program of the new team,” said Kaakour, who favors a cabinet of independent experts.
For their part, Hezbollah and its allies are pressing for a political cabinet.
After the famous “Bye bye! to the government of technocrats” launched the day after the legislative elections by FPM leader Gebran Bassil, Ali Daamouche, chairman of Hezbollah's executive council, made similar remarks Sunday. “The national interest requires the formation of a balanced and capable government, which would respect the fair representation in the Parliament ...,” he said at a ceremony in the locality of Chacra, in Nabatieh.
“We can no longer approve the lie that is the government of technocrats and specialists,” Rindala Jabbour, recalling that “the citizens have just made their choices in the ballot box, and their will should be respected.”
Hezbollah's efforts
According to our political columnist Mounir Rabih, Bassil informed Hezbollah that he wanted to keep the lucrative Energy Ministry (which has been in the hands of the FPM since 2008). The ongoing negotiations, led by the Shiite party, would therefore mainly aim to convince the FPM leader to support the Mikati option.
“We have not yet decided on the portfolios we are seeking, knowing that given the short term of the next government, we do not want to paralyze the process. If we see that a good majority of the protagonists are in favor of keeping Mr. Mikati in his post, we will not prevent this,” Jabbour said.
The FPM could therefore put water in its wine despite the deterioration of its relationship with Mikati, due to the latest war of communiqués between the latter and caretaker Energy Minister Walid Fayad, who is close to the FPM, regarding the electricity file.
It was in this “electric” atmosphere that a meeting between Aoun and Mikati was held Friday in Baabda. According to our political columnist, the president assured the caretaker prime minister that he has no problem with him forming the future team, provided he dismisses central bank governor Riad Salameh, Baabda's bête noire, and makes certain appointments. This information was swept away by the circles of the two leaders, among which it was stated that the meeting took place in a positive atmosphere and that no conditions for the formation of the ministerial team were set.
Meanwhile, the Parliament Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab was dispatched Saturday to Ain al-Tineh for a meeting with the head of the legislature, Nabih Berri, opponent of the Baabda-FPM duo.
"Mr. Berri wants the train to be put on track as soon as possible. We agreed to work with the president to solve all the problems in the interest [of all],” said Parliament’s No. 2, indicating that he had given Berri a message from Aoun but disclosing no further details.
This article was originally published in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.
