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ANALYSIS

So far, Mikati has been pitting himself against the Aounist camp

“We will not recognize the caretaker cabinet as legitimate after Oct. 31,” Gebran Bassil warned

So far, Mikati has been pitting himself against the Aounist camp

Najib Mikati and Walid Joumblatt at the Prime Minister's home, Sept. 5, 2022. (Credit: Photo courtesy of Mikati's press office)

Priority must be given to the presidential election. But in the wait for a compromise to mature, a cabinet must be there to run the country’s affairs. Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati is aware of this equation, and mainly of the fact that he holds both cards: He chairs the caretaker cabinet and will be at the head of the cabinet which he is supposed to form before the end of President Michel Aoun’s term on Oct. 31, and which will be entitled to exercise its full powers.

Benefitting from this advantageous position, he is determined to face the camp of Aoun and his son-in-law, Free Patriotic Movement leader Gebran Bassil. In the event of a presidential vacancy, the caretaker government will exercise the prerogatives of the president, he said clearly on Monday evening.

For its part, the Aounist camp also opted for escalation, through Bassil’s remarks yesterday: After Oct. 31, the caretaker cabinet will be, in his eyes, stripped of any constitutional and popular legitimacy.

In the wake of this constitutional controversy with the presidential camp, Mikati was very clear this time: “There is nothing called presidential vacancy, but rather a vacant post. The constitution is clear on this. In the event of a vacancy in the presidential seat, the prerogatives of the head of state will be transferred to the current cabinet,” he said Monday evening after a meeting at his place of residence in Beirut with the Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Joumblatt. The meeting was attended by caretaker Education Minister Abbas Halabi, and PSP MP Wael Abou Faour [Bekaa-Rashaya].

“The constitution stipulates that the prerogatives [of the president] shall be transferred to the cabinet without specifying whether it is a caretaker cabinet or not,” Mikati said, recalling that “the constitution rejects the vacancy.”

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Mikati was thus responding to the remarks President Aoun made on Aug. 25 in front of Maronite League head Khalil Karam. Taking aim at Mikati, whom he accused of being unwilling to fulfill his task while time is running out, Aoun said that “the current caretaker cabinet will not be able to exercise the prerogatives of the president in case of a vacancy,” in the top post, and reiterated his determination to leave the Baabda palace on Oct. 31, the day his term in office expires.

Yesterday, it was the leader of the FPM himself who brought it up again, exerting further pressure on the prime minister-designate. “We will not recognize the caretaker cabinet after Oct. 31,” said Bassil in a press conference at the FPM headquarters in Sin al-Fil. “After the end of the presidential term, and if a new [ministerial] team is not formed, we will consider the caretaker cabinet as a usurper and devoid of any constitutional and popular legitimacy,” said the FPM leader.

He warned Mikati and his supporters, including Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri — who met with the caretaker prime minister yesterday — and Hezbollah as well, saying: “One constitutional chaos justifies another. Do not lead us where we do not want to go. Let the prime minister form his team in partnership with the president.”

Joumblatt for a midway solution

In addition to the Aounist camp’s response, some observers interpreted Mikati’s remarks as a reflection of his desire not to put in place a new ministerial team a few weeks before the end of the six-year term.

“The prime minister will continue to make efforts to ensure that a new cabinet is formed,” Ali Darwish, a former Tripoli MP close to the prime minister, told L’Orient-Le Jour.

For his part, Nicolas Nahas, also a former minister from Tripoli rotating in the orbit of Mikati, blamed the blockage on Aoun and his camp. “The governmental process awaits a decision from the president to facilitate the task of the prime minister,” he said.

Baabda refused to respond to this accusation, ensuring that Aoun’s position has not changed one iota: the caretaker cabinet cannot run the country’s affairs in the event of a vacancy in the presidential post.

How to break the deadlock then? For Baabda, it is enough to expand the caretaker team by incorporating six political figures in order to give the cabinet a political character, in view of the milestones ahead, including the presidential election.

For Mikati, on the other hand, it would be enough to refloat the caretaker team. This option is seen by some observers as a middle ground solution, that is, between the option of renewing all cabinet members and that of adding six political ministers. It is precisely to advocate such a scenario that the PSP leader met Monday evening with the prime minister-designate.

One of the meeting’s attendants told L’Orient-Le Jour that Joumblatt did not support the idea of forming a new team whose term would not exceed two months. Instead, he is more inclined toward refloating the current team with slight reshuffles. This position was implicitly criticized by the FPM leader during his press briefing yesterday.

Bassil called on Mikati “not to follow the advice” that was given to him in this vein, in reference to Joumblatt, and mainly to Berri, a major opponent of the Aounist camp accused of supporting Mikati in his defiant attitude. During his meeting with Joumblatt, the latter “said he is in favor of maintaining the caretaker team, with a slight reshuffle of some ministers,” said a person close to him, and stressed that Joumblatt “has zero interest in the appointment of ministers.”

This applies to the appointment of a successor to caretaker Minister of Displaced Issam Charafeddine, who, like caretaker Economy Minister Amin Salam, would be the subject of the probable ministerial reshuffle that has been discussed for several weeks.

Charafeddine was close to Joumblatt’s rival, Talal Arslan. Since the latter lost in the parliamentary elections in May, Mikati proposed to replace Charafeddine with a Druze minister close to Moukhtara.

Joumblatt wanted to facilitate his task. “The thing that matters to us now is to encourage all the players to elect a new president as soon as possible,” said an MP affiliated with Joumblatt on condition of anonymity.

This article was originally published in French on L'Orient-Le Jour. Translation by Joelle El Khoury.

Priority must be given to the presidential election. But in the wait for a compromise to mature, a cabinet must be there to run the country’s affairs. Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati is aware of this equation, and mainly of the fact that he holds both cards: He chairs the caretaker cabinet and will be at the head of the cabinet which he is supposed to form before the end of President...