Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri Monday discussed names of potential ministers, including Christian ministers, during a meeting with President Michel Aoun that has relaunched the stalled Cabinet formation process after a three-week standstill, an official source said.
However, no major breakthrough was made during the talks between the two leaders in the weekslong formation impasse.
لقاء مع رئيس الجمهورية ميشال عون في #القصر_الجمهوري pic.twitter.com/FSrvUorWQe
— Saad Hariri (@saadhariri) December 7, 2020
“Hariri’s meeting with Aoun has set the Cabinet formation process into motion following a three-week interruption. The two leaders discussed the names of potential ministers, including Christian ministers, as well as the distribution of ministerial portfolios,” the official source told The Daily Star.
“The two agreed to follow up on the talks on the goverment formation at another meeting Wednesday,” said the source, who could not confirm whether Hariri had presented Aoun with a draft Cabinet lineup as had been widely expected.
But Hariri apparently carried with him a paper containing a number of names of potential ministers of his proposed 18-member Cabinet of nonpartisan specialists, the source said.
Hariri, who has imposed a blanket of secrecy and silence on the formation efforts in a bid to accelerate the process since his designation to form a new government on Oct. 22, made a terse statement after the meeting with Aoun at Baabda Palace. He did not say whether any progress had been made.
“I met with President Aoun and consulted with him. I will return Wednesday afternoon to outline a lot of basic matters,” Hariri said.
Aoun and Hariri reviewed the steps that need to be taken in order to speed up the formation of the new government, the state-run National News Agency reported.
It was the first meeting between Hariri and Aoun in three weeks after differences over the naming of Christian ministers in the next government, and the president’s demand, backed by the Free Patriotic Movement headed by MP Gebran Bassil, for the adoption of unified criteria in the process brought the formation efforts to a halt.
Hariri’s attempts to form a new Cabinet have also been stalled by the rival parties’ jockeying for key ministerial posts.
Hariri’s disagreement with Aoun over who would name the nine Christian ministers in the proposed 18-member Cabinet of specialists has raised fears that any proposed Cabinet lineup will be rejected by Aoun, a political source had told The Daily Star.
During their last meeting at Baabda Palace last month, Hariri brought with him an incomplete Cabinet list, naming by himself seven Christian ministers, and left the remaining two Christian ministers for the Interior and Defense portfolios up to the president, the source said. “But President Aoun rejected the proposal,” the source added.
Hariri’s reported insistence on naming all Cabinet members has put him on a collision course with both Aoun and the FPM’s Strong Lebanon bloc which, with 24 MPs, is the biggest bloc in Parliament with the largest Christian representation.
The planned Aoun-Hariri meeting came days after the president called for a greater role by the caretaker Cabinet in dealing with the country’s deteriorating economic conditions, in the clearest sign yet that the formation of a new government was not imminent. It also came amid fresh political escalation by the FPM, which accused Hariri of dragging his feet in the process.
Backed by France and regional powers, Hariri has been struggling to form an 18-member Cabinet of nonpartisan experts to implement a series of structural reforms outlined in the French initiative designed to lift Lebanon out of its worst economic and financial crisis since the 1975-90 Civil War.
Implementation of long-overdue reforms is deemed essential to releasing billions of dollars in promised international aid to the cash-strapped country, which is teetering on the verge of a total economic collapse.
The Aoun-Hariri meeting came against the backdrop of mounting international pressure on Lebanon’s rival political factions to act quickly to form a new credible government to enact reforms.
The latest call for the swift formation of a new government was issued at a Dec. 2 international conference to drum up humanitarian aid to Lebanon following the massive Aug. 4 explosion that devastated Beirut’s port and destroyed large swaths of the capital.
France and the United Nations, which organized the video conference in Paris, Wednesday vowed to keep providing humanitarian aid to Lebanon but urged the country's leaders to form a new government to implement reforms. It was the second aid conference for Lebanon since the port blast.
French President Emmanuel Macron and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the creation of a fund handled by the World Bank, the U.N. and the European Union to provide support for Lebanon, including food, health care, education and the reconstruction of Beirut’s port.
The Lebanese crisis was among topics discussed during a meeting in Paris Monday between Macron and visiting Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.
“Lebanon is suffering from the failure to implement the required political course. The Lebanese people do not like to remain hostage in the hands of any political class,” Macron said at a joint news conference with Sisi.
Sisi, meanwhile, said Egypt would “never abandon our brothers in Lebanon.”
“We call for the formation of a Lebanese government as soon as possible to overcome the crisis,” Sisi said.
Lebanon has been without a government since Aug. 10 when then-Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government resigned in the aftermath of the port explosion, although it stayed on in a caretaker capacity.
Any type of international bailout for the crisis-stricken country hinges on the implementation of reforms by a new government.
As political rivals waste time over sectarian considerations in Cabinet formation, Lebanon sinks deeper into crisis, and even if a new government is formed this month, reforms need time to be enacted, and Lebanon cannot endure any longer without financial assistance.
Macron is set to visit Beirut this month in what will mark his third visit to the troubled country in five months. The initiative that he presented to Lebanese political leaders during his second visit in September, when he called for a "mission" government to be formed as quickly as possible to enact reforms and unlock financial aid, has so far made no headway as three months later politicians still haggle over shares.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
