BEIRUT: Lebanon is poised for an open-ended Cabinet crisis as ongoing consultations to break the deadlock over the appointment of senior security and military officers have so far produced no results, officials said Tuesday.
MP Michel Aoun, meanwhile, stood firm on his demand that the Cabinet convene to exercise its prerogatives by approving security and military appointments, a contentious issue that has thrown the government into paralysis earlier this month, prompting Prime Minister Tammam Salam to suspend its meetings.
“There is no imminent breakthrough in the Cabinet crisis. Therefore, the Cabinet impasse will persist,” Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mohammad Fneish told The Daily Star.
Fneish, one of two ministers who represent Hezbollah in the Cabinet, reiterated his party’s support for demands by Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement that the Cabinet should first address the issue of military and security appointments before moving to other topics on the agenda.
“We support Gen. Aoun’s bloc in its stance that the Cabinet should not discuss any item on the agenda before acting on the issue of security and military appointments,” Fneish said.
He added that he and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil from the FPM had relayed their joint stance to Salam when they met him Monday. “Salam is still holding consultations to resolve the crisis. He is behaving calmly and carefully to tackle the crisis,” Fneish said.
Backed by their allies in Hezbollah, the Marada Movement and the Tashnag Party, the FPM’s ministers have said they would not allow the Cabinet to discuss any topic before it addresses appointments of new security chiefs, including the appointment of Aoun’s son-in-law, Brig. Gen. Shamel Roukoz, the head of the Army Commando Unit, as Army commander.
In response, the FPM’s political rivals have accused it of attempting to paralyze the government over the issue of security appointments.
Salam, who leaves for Cairo Wednesday on a one-day official visit for talks with President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and other senior Egyptian officials, has rejected attempts to cripple the Cabinet’s work for the sake of a government employee.
Speaker Nabih Berri also ruled out a Cabinet session soon, saying the country is going through “a period of contemplation” to find a solution to the disruption of the government’s work.
“There will be no Cabinet session for now. Prime Minister Tammam Salam is making contacts because he is the first one concerned with tackling the Cabinet crisis,” Berri was quoted as saying by visitors at his Ain al-Tineh residence.
Commenting on reports that the Cabinet paralysis would last until the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins Thursday, Berri said he could not confirm that the “period of contemplation” would go on during the whole month of Ramadan.
Indirectly responding to the FPM ministers who insist that the Cabinet address the issue of security and military appointments before moving to other topics, Berri said: “In normal conditions, the prime minister is the one who prepares the Cabinet agenda and informs the president of it. But amid the presidential vacuum and with the Cabinet assuming the presidency’s powers by proxy, the prime minister is the one who prepares the agenda of Cabinet sessions and no minister has the right to interfere in this agenda but he can object to it inside the session.”
Referring to the 13th dialogue session held between the Future Movement and Hezbollah at Ain al-Tineh Monday, Berri said the two sides discussed the presidential election and the disruption of the work of the Cabinet and Parliament.
“There is nothing new with regard to the presidential election or with regard to dealing with the obstruction of [Parliament] legislation and Cabinet sessions,” Berri said.
As part of his ongoing consultations on the Cabinet crisis, Salam met Tuesday with Defense Minister Samir Moqbel, who said that the disruption of the government’s work was unacceptable.
“We discussed political issues and the Cabinet situation,” Moqbel told reporters after the meeting. “We are today facing the fate of a country and its economy. We have agricultural and industrial products which we must export but we cannot do this because it requires a Cabinet decision … It is unacceptable to remain in this situation.”
Meanwhile, the parliamentary Future bloc lashed out at Hezbollah and the FPM, blaming them for the Cabinet paralysis.
The bloc expressed its regret that Hezbollah and its allies’ role in Lebanon is limited to “negative aspects through encouraging the continued disruption of the work of Parliament and the Cabinet.”
“Following the obstruction [of the presidential election] and the hijacking of the presidency, the disruption and blackmail have spread to the work of the Cabinet, which is the only institution now that can deal with the situation resulting from the continued vacuum in the presidency,” the bloc said in a statement issued after its weekly meeting chaired by former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
“The obstruction of the Cabinet’s work has great negative effects on the economic and financial situation in the country where economic stagnation is worsening and economic sectors are on the decline,” the statement said.
It blamed Hezbollah for the worsening economic situation. “Hezbollah continues to provide political cover for [Aoun’s] Change and Reform bloc, which links the fate of the country and the fate of Muslim-Christian coexistence to very limited personal and family interests,” it said.
However, Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc stood firm on its demand for the appointment of new top security and military officers. It called on Salam to convene the Cabinet and discuss security appointments before other issues.
“We are the ones who are calling for a Cabinet meeting to correct the flaws and the path which is contrary to the Constitution and law,” former Minister Salim Jreissati said after the bloc’s weekly meeting chaired by Aoun.
