Caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati presides over a cabinet meeting at the Grand Serail in Beirut on Feb. 8, 2022. (Credit: File photo/Dalati and Nohra)
BEIRUT — Najib Mikati's caretaker cabinet met on Monday at the Grand Serail in Beirut shortly after 11 a.m. to address an agenda focused on social and medical aid amid Lebanon's ongoing economic crisis. The meeting went ahead despite the boycott of several ministers close to the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the party founded by former President Michel Aoun whose term in office ended on Oct. 31.
On Sunday, Abdallah Bou Habib, Henri Khoury, Maurice Slim, Amine Salam, Hector Hajjar, Walid Fayad, Walid Nassar, Georges Bouchikian and Issam Charafeddine said in a joint statement that they "refuse to be associated with a violation of the constitution." The statement continued: "It was agreed by the prime minister and the government that no session would be held unless there … [is] … an emergency [or] … an approval by all members of the government."
This announcement led to fears that the government meeting would be adjourned due to lack of quorum. However, Bouchikian and Hajjar were both at the Grand Serail on Monday morning, enabling the meeting to go ahead with 17 out of 24 ministers in attendance.
The ministerial boycott comes after the FPM indirectly encouraged its affiliates to refrain from participating in the meeting. Aoun on Sunday said that Mikati's convening of the government is an "attempt to seize power and impose his will on the Lebanese contrary to what the constitution dictates."
The FPM-linked ministers' boycott also comes despite the symbolic measure taken by Mikati over the weekend to reduce the meeting's agenda to 25 items, instead of the 65 initially planned, in order to give the impression that cabinet would examine only non-crucial issues, so as not to encroach on the prerogatives of the president.