Lebanon's President Michel Aoun meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati (right) at the Presidential Palace in Baabda on June 23. (Credit: Dalati and Nohra)
BEIRUT —The Free Patriotic Movement published a statement Friday accusing Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati of “refusing to form a government” and “voluntarily hindering” the formation of the cabinet, which has been overdue since the May elections.
Here’s what we know:
• Mikati retorted with a statement of his own, accusing the FPM of “inventing disputes and hiding the truth at the end of [President Michel] Aoun's mandate,” set to conclude in October.
• The FPM statement continued: “ Your past is fraught with corruption. What are your national achievements to enable you to take on a party that struggles historically?”
• The FPM statement also accused Mikati, who in recent years was suspected of illicit profiteering, of “having spent years making deals and collecting commissions. You have built your political career by pleasing foreign powers…In all impertinence, you land with private planes and your yachts to accuse the FPM of corruption.”
• “You didn't even dare to stand as a candidate [in the legislative elections last May] and you didn't manage to get a single deputy elected,” the statement concluded.
• In the statement subsequently issued by his press office, Mikati claimed that “the truth-distorting party is out of touch with the people,” in reference to the FPM.