Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star
President Michel Aoun Monday began a new round of consultations with the country’s top leaders as part of an initiative aimed at resolving the monthslong Cabinet formation deadlock, official sources said.
“President Aoun launched an initiative aimed at reaching a solution to the Cabinet formation crisis before the [Christmas and New Year] holidays,” a source at Baabda Palace told The Daily Star.
Aoun met separately at Baabda Palace with Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri with the talks focusing on proposals to resolve the problem of representing the six Hezbollah-backed Sunni MPs in the new government, the last remaining hurdle to the Cabinet formation.
Aoun is set to meet Tuesday with a delegation from Hezbollah, whose insistence that the six MPs be represented in the new government has blocked the formation.
The demand by the six MPs not affiliated with the Future Movement for representation emerged as the last obstacle as 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.
“President Aoun has asked Speaker Berri and Prime Minister Hariri for their help in finding a solution to the last remaining obstacle to the Cabinet formation,” the source said. He added that Aoun would ask the parties concerned with the last stumbling block – Hariri, Hezbollah and the six Sunni MPs – for their help in facilitating the government formation.
The source declined to give details of Aoun’s initiative before the president has wrapped up his consultations. He said the president, “by virtue of his position and responsibility,” decided to act to put an end to the Cabinet stalemate, now in its seventh month. The source said Aoun’s initiative came after a host of proposals and mediation attempts in the past few weeks had failed to break the impasse.
Caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil’s mediation attempt at Aoun’s request had failed to produce tangible results.
One of Bassil’s proposals to expand the new government from 30 to 32 ministers to allow for the representation of one of the six MPs has been rejected by Hariri despite gaining the support of Berri.
Another proposal that calls for representing the six MPs from Aoun’s share did not gain the president’s support.
However, a political source said Aoun, keen on the rise of the first government after the May parliamentary elections and which he had said would be the first of his tenure, would eventually agree to representing the six MPs from his share as a solution to the crisis.
Hariri was upbeat after his talks with Aoun.
“I’m always optimistic that there are solutions to the government crisis and President Aoun will continue his consultations,” Hariri told reporters at Baabda Palace after the nearly one-and-a-half-hour meeting.
“We discussed with the president several proposals to the government [formation] issue and there are solutions that can be [agreed upon].
“President Aoun will complete his consultations. God willing, we will reach solutions,” Hariri said.
He refused to give details of the ideas he had discussed with Aoun.
“There are those who want the government to be formed and there are those who don’t want this. The president and I personally are for the formation. We must give the president a chance to hold his consultations and I will continue to communicate with him,” Hariri said.The Aoun-Hariri meeting came following last week’s tensions between the two leaders after the president, seemingly frustrated by the delay in the Cabinet formation, issued a statement hinting at the possibility of sending a letter to Parliament to seek lawmakers’ help in breaking the stalemate. Some fear that Aoun’s move could lead to reconsidering Hariri’s designation.
Asked if Aoun told him about his intention to send a letter to Parliament, Hariri said: “Our problem in Lebanon is to stick to one specific issue and use it to confront each other. But I know very well the president’s intentions … The president is willing and working eventually for the government formation.”
Hariri said he would leave Tuesday to attend the Lebanon-U.K. Business and Investment Forum in London Wednesday and would be back in Beirut Saturday or Sunday. The forum – the first of its kind – will see British ministers and Lebanese officials come together and showcase the market opportunities Lebanon has to offer.
Hariri said he also discussed with Aoun the situation in southern Lebanon and the issue of Hezbollah’s alleged tunnels. “We agreed on an approach to deal with this matter to protect Lebanon,” he said.
Israel last week launched “Operation Northern Shield” in northern Israel to “expose and thwart” what it claimed were Hezbollah attack tunnels that ran from Lebanon into the Jewish state
Meanwhile, a delegation from the Progressive Socialist Party’s parliamentary Democratic Gathering bloc met separately with Berri and Hariri to discuss the government formation impasse and the economic situation.
“We discussed the issue of government formation and the ongoing constitutional debates regarding the powers of the presidency and the premiership,” MP Bilal Abdallah said after the meeting with Hariri at the latter’s Downtown residence.
Abdullah added that the talks also focused on the socio-economic situation and that they presented Hariri with a document proposing some solutions.
“As a Democratic Gathering and Progressive Socialist Party, we consider that the prolongation of this crisis might expose the entire society to the risk of collapse,” he said.
The delegation, led by MP Teymour Joumblatt, had also met last week with Aoun for the same purpose.
Speaking to reporters after meeting Berri at his Ain al-Tineh residence, Joumblatt called on all political parties to facilitate the government formation.
“We call on political parties to speed up the government formation, and we stress the importance of fixing the economic situation before it fully collapses,” Joumblatt, son of PSP leader Walid Joumblatt, said.
