Hussein Dakroub – The Daily Star
Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri will not step down from forming a new government, even if he faces presidential pressures, caretaker Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk said Sunday, in what appeared to be a blunt response to any move aimed at reconsidering Hariri’s designation.
Hezbollah meanwhile warned that leaving the country without a fully functioning government would plunge it into chaos and paralyze state institutions.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir weighed in on the Cabinet formation crisis, expressing the kingdom’s support for Hariri’s attempts to form a new government, while lashing out at Iran and Hezbollah for their “destabilizing role” in the region.
“We support Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri in the formation of a Lebanese government. We reject Iran’s destabilizing role and Hezbollah’s role,” Jubeir told a news conference in Riyadh at the end of the annual Gulf Cooperation Council summit meeting.
The remarks by Jubeir and Machnouk and Hezbollah’s warning come amid tensions that burst out into the open Friday between President Michel Aoun and Hariri over constitutional powers in the Cabinet formation process, which has entered its seventh month of deadlock.
Following Aoun’s hint at the possibility of sending a letter to Parliament to urge MPs to help break the deadlock – a move some fear could lead to reconsidering Hariri’s designation to form a government – Machnouk called for rallying behind the premier-designate “in order to be able to save Lebanon because the economic situation is very bad.”
“Prime Minister Hariri will not back off from the Cabinet formation. He will not step aside and he will remain firm on his position, no matter what the pressures are and where they come from, be they from the presidency or a party,” Machnouk said in a speech at a conference of the Beirut Development Council sponsored by Hariri at the Riviera Hotel in Beirut. A number of Beirut MPs from the Future Movement’s bloc and other blocs attended.
Regardless of the obstacles facing the Cabinet formation, Machnouk, who belongs to the Future parliamentary bloc, stressed that the MPs of Beirut and the Future bloc and their allies support Hariri in all steps he takes “because the government formation is essential.”
Machnouk was also referring to Hezbollah, which has been accused by Hariri of blocking the Cabinet formation through its insistence that six Hezbollah-backed Sunni MPs be represented in the government.
The Cabinet formation has been stalled since October by a demand by the six MPs not affiliated with the Future Movement for representation in the new government. Hariri has rejected their demand and rebuffed their request to meet with him to discuss the issue. In return, Hezbollah has withheld the names of its three ministers, effectively blocking the Cabinet formation, until the MPs’ demand is met.
MP Mohammad Raad, head of Hezbollah’s 13-member parliamentary bloc, renewed the party’s call for the six lawmakers’ representation in the new Cabinet. He said the obstruction of the Cabinet formation lies with “the prime minister-designate who miscalculates, and the people must not tolerate this miscalculation.”
“He [Hariri] must correct his calculations, especially since the [new] government, intended to be a national unity government, must include all the parties that have the right to be represented according to a clear criterion based on the results of the [May] parliamentary elections,” Raad told a memorial ceremony in the southern town of Al-Kfour.
“A country without a government will be thrown into loss, chaos and reluctance to carry out responsibilities in [state] administrations and civil service. Therefore, we are people most keen on the need to speed up the Cabinet formation,” he added.
Raad’s remarks drew a quick rebuke from Future Television, which is affiliated with the Future Movement.
“The prime minister-designate did not miscalculate in politics, nor in constitutional or national calculations. Those who miscalculated in all these [issues] want to hold the prime minister-designate responsible for the mistakes for which they are responsible, and they blame him for the delay in the Cabinet formation,” Future Television said in its news bulletin preamble Sunday.
In a clear reference to Hezbollah and its insistence that the six MPs be represented, the TV said: “They obstructed the formation at the eleventh hour and dragged the country to a new round of obstruction to which they have been accustomed since 2005.”
Seemingly frustrated with the delay, Aoun, in a statement issued by his media office, suggested that he would resort to Parliament for help in resolving the crisis if the deadlock persisted.
Aoun’s statement came a day after Hariri rejected a 32-member Cabinet proposal advanced by caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil to allow for the representation of one of the six Sunni MPs.
In a quick response to Aoun’s statement, Hariri, through a senior source close to him, warned against attempts to undermine the prime minister’s powers and impose “new constitutional norms” in the government formation “contrary to the provisions of the Constitution and the requirements of national entente.”
A senior Future official said Parliament cannot withdraw Hariri’s mandate to form a new government unless he decides to step aside.
“Hariri has been designated [to form a government] with a guarantee from the Constitution. No one, including Parliament, can withdraw this designation unless he decides to step down,” former Future MP Mustafa Allouch told the state-run Radio Lebanon.
“The prime minister-designate is the one who forms the government in consultation with the president,” Allouch, a member of the Future Movement’s political bureau, said. He dismissed the latest 32-member Cabinet proposal, calling it an act of “beating around the bush and breaking rules.”
Allouch also called on the six MPs to join opposition ranks instead of obstructing the Cabinet formation.
Speaker Nabih Berri said Parliament would follow the Constitution if Aoun were to send a letter requesting that lawmakers hold consultations about the government formation stalemate.
“The president has a constitutional right to send a letter to Parliament. When we receive the letter … we will deal with it according to the law and the Constitution,” Al-Joumhouria newspaper quoted Berri as saying.
A member of Berri’s parliamentary Development and Liberation bloc said Israel’s threats should prod all rival political factions to accelerate the government formation.
“The current phase no longer allows for political luxury regarding the government formation process – haste is needed in forming a new Cabinet,” MP Ali Bazzi said at a memorial ceremony in the southern town of Burj Qalaway. “The extent of the crises and challenges that Lebanon faces requires for everyone to shoulder national responsibility and make concessions for the sake of the nation.”