Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has called on President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri to form a government without Hezbollah should the party continue refusing to hand the PM-designate the names of its three Shiite ministers.
“Any political party has the right to have a viewpoint about the formation process, but that should not be more than a mere viewpoint. President Aoun and PM-designate Hariri have the right to endorse or reject this viewpoint. The party concerned can also grant or withhold its confidence from the formed government. This is the constitution and this is democracy,” Geagea said in an interview with the Central News Agency.
“But no party can say, ‘You either do what we want or there won’t be a government,’ and this is what Hezbollah is doing today,” the LF leader added.
Warning that the economic and social situations “cannot withstand further confusion,” Geagea said Aoun and Hariri “must take a decision” in light of their “constitutional responsibility.”
“They must tell Hezbollah, ‘We want you in the government, give us the names of your ministers, and you have the right to voice your opinion on the issue of representing the independent Sunnis with a minister’… or else they should form a de facto government should the party refuse to hand the names,” Geagea added.
The new government was on the verge of formation on October 29 after the Lebanese Forces accepted the portfolios that were assigned to it but a last-minute hurdle over the representation of Hezbollah’s Sunni MPs surfaced.
Hezbollah demanded that its six Sunni MPs who are completely opposed to PM designate Saad Hariri be included in his Cabinet — something that Hariri, the country’s top Sunni Muslim leader, categorically rejects and so did Lebanese president Michel Aoun even though he is also allied with Hezbollah.
Hariri has rejected the demand, announcing that he’d rather step down than give the aforementioned lawmakers a seat from his own share in the government.
Hezbollah continues to insist on including its Sunni allies in the cabinet and refuses to hand over to Hariri the list of its party candidates and for this reason the impasse continues and no cabinet may be formed anytime soon and the Lebanese economy could collapse as a result of that ,
Hezbollah’s Sunni MPs demand a meeting with Hariri
Hezbollah’s Sunni MPs said they are giving Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri 48 hours to set a date to meet with them representation in the government, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Monday.
“We are giving Hariri 48 hours to set a date and meet us. Any meeting after that deadline is meaningless,” one Hezbollah Independent Sunni MPs reportedly told the daily without being named.
However he said “nothing new has emerged regarding their demands for representation in the government.”
After holding separate parliamentary consultations with Hariri, each as part of his own bloc, the six MPs decided to form a separate bloc.
The MPs are: MP Abdel-Rahim Mrad, Adnan Traboulsi, Qassem Hashem ( who ran on the Amal Movement ticket) Walid Sukkarieh ( who ran on the Hezbollah ticket ), Jihad al-Samad and Faisal Karami who ran on the the Marada Movement ticket.
The Amal Movement and Marada are allied with Hezbollah
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