Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: President Michel Aoun Tuesday warned that Lebanon faced the threat of a “disaster” if his initiative to resolve the monthslong Cabinet formation crisis fails, in the latest presidential appeal to feuding parties to facilitate a solution.
Aoun’s stern warning came a day after he began a new round of consultations with the country’s top leaders, as well as other politicians, as part of an initiative he launched to break the Cabinet formation deadlock, now in its seventh month.
Aoun met Tuesday with a Hezbollah delegation to discuss proposals to resolve the issue of representing the six Hezbollah-backed Sunni MPs in the new government, the last remaining obstacle to the Cabinet formation.
The delegation included MP Mohammad Raad, head of Hezbollah’s 13-member parliamentary bloc, and Hussein Khalil, a key political aide to party leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah.
Raad said they held a “brainstorming” meeting with Aoun on the Cabinet formation crisis.
“The session was to consult on the situation the country has reached. There are ideas being proposed here and there.
“We had a brainstorming meeting to search for useful solutions in the country’s interest,” Raad told reporters after the meeting at Baabda Palace in the afternoon.
“There are ideas that can be discussed and ideas that have been ruled out,” Raad said, without elaborating. He added that some ideas required further discussion, though did not specify their nature.
Local media outlets said Aoun asked the two Hezbollah officials to help in resolving the problem of the six Sunni MPs’ representation in the new government.
The president’s talks with the Hezbollah delegation gained special significance because the party’s insistence that the six Sunni MPs be represented in the new government has blocked the formation.
The demand for representation by the six MPs not affiliated with the Future Movement emerged as the last obstacle as Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri was preparing to announce a 30-member Cabinet lineup in late October. Hariri has rejected the MPs’ demand and also rebuffed their request to meet with him to discuss the issue.
Aoun’s meeting with the Hezbollah delegation came a day after he held talks separately with Speaker Nabih Berri and Hariri centering on proposals to resolve the six MPs’ representation problem.A source at Baabda Palace told The Daily Star that Aoun had asked the two leaders for their help in finding a solution to the problem.
Earlier in the day, Aoun warned that the failure of his initiative would be disastrous for the country.
He said he decided to embark on this initiative after the Cabinet formation had stumbled and mediation attempts to break the deadlock had failed.
“I deemed it my duty to take the initiative to bring all the parties together on the government formation because the dangers [facing the country] are beyond our capability to endure,” Aoun told a joint news conference at Baabda Palace with visiting Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen.
“I took this initiative to be successful and it must succeed – or else there will be a disaster,” Aoun said, adding: “Frankly, this is the reason for my intervention. I hope this initiative will succeed, because we are of the opinion that all parties should be brought together.”
Aoun’s initiative won praise from the Future Movement’s parliamentary bloc, which stressed the premier-designate’s powers in the formation cannot be compromised. “President Michel Aoun’s initiative to reopen the doors to calm discussions [on the Cabinet crisis] … is an important step in the right direction that will turn the page on previous constitutional calls and fatwas, and restore political dialogue to the right perspective,” the bloc said in a statement issued after its weekly meeting chaired by MP Bahia Hariri.
“The bloc affirms in this respect that the prime minister-designate’s powers cannot be compromised or touched under any circumstances.”
It added that all attempts to infringe on Hariri’s powers “either through inventing new norms or imposing political conditions on the Cabinet formation process are certainly doomed to failure by virtue of the Constitution.”
Aoun is slated to meet at 4 p.m. Wednesday with the six Sunni MPs.
Abdel-Rahim Mrad, one of the six MPs, reiterated their position on being represented in the new government by one of them. “We insist on being represented by one of the six MPs. We will not accept to be represented by any bloc, even from President Aoun’s share,” Mrad told The Daily Star.
Although no details emerged of Aoun’s initiative, a political source said the problem of repesenting the six MPs would eventually be resolved from the president’s share, after a proposal by caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil to expand the new government from 30 to 32 ministers to allow for the representation of one of the six MPs had been rejected by Hariri .
Berri sounded hopeful about forming the Cabinet before the holidays.
Asked if Aoun’s initiative was the last chance to end the Cabinet gridlock, Berri told reporters after meeting with the Austrian president at his Ain al-Tineh residence: “There is no such thing as a last chance. The Lebanese mind is always creative. The president, God willing, can reach quick solutions.”
He said he discussed with Aoun Monday many ideas to end the stalemate. “If the first idea doesn’t succeed, then the second or the third will.” Asked if the Cabinet would be formed ahead of the holidays, he said: “Inshallah.”
Berri also said he believes that Aoun, after launching the consultations on the Cabinet crisis, has dropped the idea of sending a letter to Parliament to seek lawmakers’ help in breaking the stalemate.
The Lebanese Forces’ parliamentary Strong Republic bloc again called for the quick formation of the government to deal with the worsening economic situation.
“The bloc renews its call for the need to immediately form the government and if this is difficult to achieve, to reactivate the caretaker Cabinet to hold meetings of necessity with the aim of pulling the country out of the economic deterioration that can no longer be endured, and calls for speedy solutions,” a statement issued after the bloc’s meeting chaired by LF leader Samir Geagea said.
Meanwhile, Hariri arrived in London Tuesday evening to kick off the first in a series of forums showcasing Lebanon’s investment opportunities abroad, a statement from his media office said.