BEIRUT: Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam Thursday began a new round of talks with representatives of parliamentary blocs in a bid to achieve a breakthrough in the Cabinet formation, stalled for over three months.
For his part, Speaker Nabih Berri said it would be impossible to form a government in which Hezbollah was not represented.
Salam discussed efforts to form the new government with Future Movement MPs Atef Majdalani, Bassem Shab and Riyad Rahhal at his Mosseitbeh residence.
He also met caretaker Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour, from Walid Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party, and former Minister Tony Karam from the Lebanese Forces.
“Today’s meetings are part of a new round of intensified talks to form the new government,” a source close to Salam told The Daily Star. “Similar meetings are expected to take place in the coming days.”
But the source said Salam’s visitors did not suggest any new initiatives or propose to Salam potential ministers.
The formation of the government has been stalled since early April after the March 8 and March 14 coalitions came to a deadlock in talks.
March 14 called for a technocratic government, stressing that Hezbollah should not be represented in Cabinet as long as it continues fighting in Syria, while March 8 called for a national unity Cabinet to represent all parties.
Berri reiterated it would not be possible to form a Cabinet without Hezbollah. “A Cabinet excluding Hezbollah cannot be formed; whoever proposes excluding Hezbollah from the government does not want a government,” he told The Daily Star.
Berri’s visitors said the speaker mocked the March 14 officials, who dismissed his announcement that the March 8 alliance had been dissolved earlier this week.
Berri said Tuesday that the fragile March 8 alliance between his Amal Movement, Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah was over. He added that with the disbanding of the March 8 coalition, the group’s demand for veto power was invalid.
But rival March 14 parties brushed off Berri’s decision as a ploy aimed at securing more ministers for the March 8 alliance in the new government.
Berri stressed his seriousness about the decision, adding that his group was not communicating with Salam, visitors said. Salam, according to the speaker, was stuck between the FPM’s demands for five ministers in the new Cabinet and demands by the March 14 coalition to exclude Hezbollah from the Cabinet.
Future Movement MP Ammar Houri reiterated his group’s stance: “We oppose Hezbollah’s participation in the government because it is involved in Syria’s war,” he told a local radio station. Houri said the Future Movement also supported a technocratic government with no political representation.
The FPM and Amal, along with Hezbollah, have been at odds over several issues, including the Parliament extension of May and a proposed law to extend the term of Army chief Gen. Jean Kahwagi, which expires in September. Aoun opposed both.
Caretaker Energy Minister Gebran Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law, said the fact that Berri relayed his support for Kahwagi’s extension to FPM MPs did not mean the party should support it. “If he mentioned it, it does not mean we should accept it ... We take part in making decisions,” he said in remarks to local media outlets.
“I understand that since 1990, many officials have gotten used to dealing with Christians in this way,” Bassil added.
Separately, political sources told The Daily Star that politicians from across the political divide were considering the extension of Army Chief of Staff Maj Gen. Walid Salman’s term, based on Article 55 of the Defense Law.
The article stipulates that Kahwagi could ask caretaker Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn to extend the term of Salman under exceptional circumstances.
The sources added that the term of Brig. Edmond Fadel, the director-general of Army Intelligence, was extended earlier this year based on the same article.
The sources said politicians were also looking into the possibility of Kahwagi asking Ghosn to extend his term or President Michel Sleiman to do so.
The sources acknowledged that extending Kahwagi’s term based on the article was more complicated than extending Salman’s term.
by: Wassim Mroueh
