Salam Rejects to Become ‘Guardian of Paralysis’ amid Fears of Major Crisis
Naharnet /08.07.15/Prime Minister Tammam Salam intensified on Wednesday his efforts to avert a major political crisis over threats made by the Free Patriotic Movement to resort to the streets in defense of Christian rights. Al-Mustaqbal daily on Wednesday quoted Salam’s sources as saying that the PM “rejects to engage in a row with anyone yet he cannot meet the demands of six ministers and ignore the requests of another 18 ministers.” Salam rejects to become the “guardian of paralysis,” they said, adding that he is eager to assume his responsibilities as the head of the 24-member government. On Tuesday, FPM chief MP Michel Aoun slammed Salam and accused him of acting as if he were president. Following the weekly meeting of his Change and Reform bloc, the lawmaker said Article 62 of the Constitution stipulates that the president’s powers would be “delegated to the cabinet in the event of a presidential void.” “But today the ministers are breaching this jurisdiction and the premier has assumed two roles — his role and the role of the president — and this is unacceptable,” he added. Aoun called for a “fateful battle” and urged his supporters to resort to the streets. But such action depends on the outcome of Thursday’s cabinet session. FPM ministers backed by their allies in Hizbullah, the Tashnag Party and Marada Movement want the government to discuss the appointment of high-ranking security and military officials. The failure to discuss the issue is threatening to paralyze the cabinet and further expanding Lebanon’s political crisis which was caused as a result of the vacuum at the presidential palace last year and the parliamentary paralysis that ensued. In their remarks to al-Mustaqbal, Salam’s sources said that so far 14 cabinet ministers, including two Christians, have signed on a decree to open an extraordinary parliamentary session.
But the PM wants the signatures of more Christian ministers to guarantee the right balance, they said. Despite the looming crisis, Salam’s sources told al-Joumhouria daily that political parties would not topple the cabinet or any other constitutional institution. The premier is expected to hold more intense meetings to avert a showdown during Thursday’s session.
FPM Prepares for Street Action, Army Says Will Protect Peaceful Rallies
Naharnet /08.07.15/The Free Patriotic Movement is putting the finishing touches on its preparations to take the streets, holding a series of organizational meetings starting from Koura in the North all the way to Jezzine in the South and distributing flyers urging the christian community to participate in rallies, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday. The FPM has held major meetings at its headquarters in Rabieh, and sources to the party told the daily that the steps “will include specific targets that have a strategic painful effect.”The party’s chief MP Michel Aoun has called on his supporters to prepare for rallies to regain the “Christians rights.” He is waiting for the outcome of Thursday’s cabinet session to give the green light for street mobility. His supporters began preparing to stage anti-government rallies after the cabinet failed to discuss the appointment of high-ranking security and military officials. Flyers calling for the restoration of the Christians’ rights and urging for the participation in the rallies have been distributed in universities and several regions, reports said. Sources to the FPM told al-Joumhouria that the mobilization will start on Wednesday in all of Lebanon’s regions, warning that “it is only the beginning and we will not accept to be distanced from the equation.”However, they stressed that the moves will be “peaceful, democratic and under the law,” keeping all options open for the shape that the demonstrations will take. Later during the day, Aoun met with his son-in-law Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil who stated afterward that there is no specific time set for the movement’s mobility and that all the options are possible. On the other hand, the Lebanese army assured that it will protect “peaceful and civilized” rallies, acknowledging the civil rights to protest under the law, the newspaper said. However it will not allow assaults against citizens or public property or disturbing security or clashes in the streets among citizens.
Bassil Warns of ‘Fateful’ Day on Thursday: Cabinet is Pushing us towards Confrontation
Naharnet /08.07.15/Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil warned on Wednesday that the Free Patriotic Movement “will no longer tolerate the violations being committed against the position of the presidency” in Lebanon, accusing the government of taking “provocative” measures. He described Thursday as being a “fateful day,” adding that the situation in Lebanon before and after the FPM’s planned protests will not be the same. He made his remarks after holding a meeting at the Foreign Ministry with delegates from its allies Hizbullah, the Tashnag party, and the Marada Movement. “The FPM and Hizbullah make up half of the country,” warned Bassil in reference to the protests against the role of the cabinet and its “usurpation of the role of the president.”Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 when the term of Michel Suleiman ended without the election of a successor. “We are seeking to safeguard the role of the president,” declared Bassil to reporters. He confirmed that the FPM ministers will attend Thursday’s contentious cabinet session, adding: “We will play the role of the president and minister at government.”“I believe that some sides are pushing the government in a direction that places it in a confrontation with others,” he continued. “We are being provoked and we will retaliate at and outside cabinet,” stressed the minister. “We do not want things to escalate like this, but we are being pushed in this direction,” said Bassil. “We are unfortunately being faced with a fateful day on Thursday,” he stated. The FPM is pushing for the government to discuss the appointment of high-ranking military and security officials and Movement chief MP Michel Aoun has been lobbying for the appointment of Commando Regiment commander Chamel Roukoz, his son-in-law, as army chief. Last week, the cabinet failed to tackle the issue and widened the divide among its different parties. Further disputes are threatening Thursday’s cabinet session. The plan to hold the protests hinges on the session’s outcome, FPM officials have said.
There is no Lebanon without FPM, Hezbollah: Bassil
The Daily Star/July. 08, 2015/
BEIRUT: Thursday’s Cabinet session will be a “fateful” event, Free Patriotic Movement Minister Gebran Bassil said after meeting with March 8 ministers Wednesday. Bassil said he saw “two trajectories” for Thursday’s scheduled session, which FPM ministers and their allies vowed to attend. “The FPM and Hezbollah, which represent half the country, would like to say this: There is no country without us, and there also won’t be a government or any Cabinet decision without us,” he said during a news conference. “I would also like to say calmly and with utter insistence and power that tomorrow is a fateful day.”Criticizing Prime Minister Tammam Salam, Bassil said that the same man is simultaneously exercising the powers of the premier and the president. He described the move as a “kidnapping” of the president’s prerogatives. The foreign minister also criticized Cabinet, saying it wasr moving away from consensus and toward provocation and incitement. “This phase of provocation will only take us into a place of power,” he said. “And we are powerful both inside and outside Cabinet.”Wednesday’s meeting between members of the FPM, Hezbollah, the Marada Movement and the Armenian Tashnag party at the Foreign Ministry sought to unify their stances one day ahead the Cabinet session. The meeting included FPM ministers Bassil and Elias Bou Saab, Hezbollah ministers Mohammad Fneish and Hussein Hajj Hasan, and Culture Minister Raymond Areiji representing the Marada movement, and Energy Minister Arthur Nazarian from the Armenian Tashnag Party. Members of the Amal Movement did not attend. Ministerial sources from the Amal Movement told LBC that they were not informed of or invited to Wednesday’s meeting. In response to a question regarding the exclusion of the Amal Movement from Wednesday’s session, Bassil said that the decision stemmed from the fact that the party did not share the same position as the FPM. “The meeting served to coordinate stances with parties who have previously adopted the FPM’s position,” he noted. Aoun has called on his supporters to stage street demonstrations against the government for passing a decree last week allotting $21 million to help export agricultural and industrial products by sea, while ignoring the FPM’s demand to discuss the appointment of senior military and security officers. Salam has scheduled a Cabinet meeting for Thursday despite the conflict that erupted with the FPM’s two ministers over the passing of the decree. Backed by their allies in Hezbollah, the Marada Movement and the Tashnag Party, the FPM’s ministers have insisted that they would not allow the Cabinet to discuss any topic before it discusses appointments of new security chiefs.
Franjieh Says Aoun’s Actions Coming at ‘Wrong Time’
Naharnet /08.07.15/Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh has said his ally Free Patriotic Movement chief Michel Aoun is calling for street protests “at the wrong time.”
Franjieh, who visited Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Tuesday, told al-Joumhouria daily’s reporter that he considers the FPM’s actions “democratic.”But they are “not appropriate at the current stage,” said Franjieh, whose remarks were published in the newspaper on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the FPM chief, who heads the Change and Reform bloc, called for a “fateful battle” to what he terms giving back Christians their rights. His supporters are preparing for street protests against the government for failing to discuss the appointment of high-ranking military and security officials.
Aoun’s protests a dead end: analysts
Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star/ July 08, 2015
BEIRUT: MP Michel Aoun’s anti-government street protests will not lead to achieving any of his objectives, such as the appointment of his son-in-law as Army commander or his election as president, political analysts said Tuesday. Instead, they said, Aoun’s escalating crusade against the government and the country’s political system would deepen divisions among the Lebanese and backfire on his popular base in Christian areas. “Street demonstrations planned by the Free Patriotic Movement will harm the country’s security and economy, and will not achieve Aoun’s main goal, which is the appointment of his son-in-law as Army commander,” Simon Haddad, professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, told The Daily Star.
“Aoun’s objectives have never been positive to the country. The regional atmosphere is not conducive for street protests and the bad economic situation cannot endure more setbacks. Furthermore, street demonstrations are bound to discourage foreign tourists from coming to Lebanon,” he said. Haddad said the FPM leader is using the same tactics – street demonstrations, public gatherings and political banners – he employed at the Presidential Palace in Baabda in 1989, a year after he was asked by then President Amine Gemayel at the end of his six-year tenure to form a transitional government to prepare for the election of a new president. “Without support from his allies, mainly Hezbollah, Aoun’s campaign will lead nowhere,” Haddad said. “Aoun will not be able to achieve his two main goals: being elected president or the appointment of his son-in-law as Army commander.”
Mario Abou Zeid, a research analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, concurred. “The street protests that Gen. Michel Aoun has been calling for are useless. For the time being, they would not have any result or impact before the government changes its policies toward the appointment of Army commander,” Abou Zeid told The Daily Star. “The main aim for Gen. Michel Aoun behind these protests was to force the government of [Prime Minister] Tammam Salam into appointing a new Army commander that is a close figure to Michel Aoun without taking into account other officers inside the Army who are higher in rank and entitled to lead the Army.”
Abou Zeid said the security situation in Lebanon is not favorable for such protests. “Lebanon has been suffering from the spillover of the Syrian conflict. Any such movement can easily destabilize the security situation in Lebanon,” he said. Abou Zeid said the street campaign would backfire on Aoun. “If Gen. Aoun’s ally, Hezbollah, does not support the protests, it will definitely backfire on him as it will show a weakness in this alliance and the weakness of the Free Patriotic Movement inside the March 8 alliance,” he said. A similar view was echoed by Sami Nader, a professor of economics and international relations at Universite Saint-Joseph, who said Aoun’s drive would lead nowhere.
“Aoun’s campaign will destabilize the country and will widen the divide among the Lebanese at a time when Lebanon is in dire need of stability and unity,” Nader, who is also the director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs, a Beirut-based think tank, told The Daily Star. “Aoun’s street movement will eventually backfire on him. In addition to widening the split among the Lebanese, the campaign will shatter any hopes for Aoun to become a consensual candidate for the presidency,” he said.
Aoun has called on his supporters to stage street demonstrations against the government for passing a decree last week allotting $21 million to help export agricultural and industrial products by sea, while ignoring the FPM ministers’ demand to discuss the appointment of senior military and security officers.
Backed by their allies in Hezbollah, the Marada Movement and the Tashnag Party, the FPM’s ministers have insisted that they would not allow the Cabinet to discuss any topic before it approves appointments of new security chiefs, including the appointment of Aoun’s son-in-law, Brig. Gen. Shamel Roukoz, the head of the Army Commando Regiment, as Army commander. In recent weeks, Aoun and another of his sons-in-law, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, have been harping on “lost Christian rights,” complaining that Christians have been marginalized in key public posts. They have branded their political opponents in the March 14 coalition as “political Daesh,” Arabic acronym for the militant group ISIS.
Nader said the yearlong presidential deadlock and the contentious issue of security and military appointments are interrelated.“The best way to overcome this problem – the presidential deadlock and the security appointments – is to abide by constitutional rules and go to Parliament to elect a new president,” he said. Nader said he agreed with Aoun’s push for the restoration of Christian rights in the public administration. “It’s true that in the post-Taif Accord era, there is a problem in Christian representation in state institutions, Parliament and the public administration,” he said.
“The remedy for regaining Christian rights is a new election law and the election of a strong president,” Nader said. “Lebanon needs a strong president who has the strength and capability to bring the Lebanese together because the very idea of Lebanon is [various sects] living together. So a strong president is the one who can embody the country’s sectarian coexistence formula.” Both Nader and Haddad ruled out the possibility of Hezbollah’s participation in the FPM’s planned demonstrations. “Hezbollah, which is overstretched in the war in Syria, has no interest in joining the FPM in its protests,” Nader said.
Although the FPM’s demonstrations will not threaten civil peace or the country’s power-sharing system based on the Taif Accord, which Aoun had fiercely opposed when it was signed by Muslim and Christian lawmakers in the Saudi mountain city of Taif in 1989, Nader said the street action might trigger counter-protests.
“There is also the possibility of the FPM’s protests spinning out of control if some infiltrators joined them with the aim of inciting trouble,” he said.
Haddad, the AUB professor, said even if Hezbollah decided to back the FPM’s protests, this would not threaten civil peace or the Taif Accord. “Hezbollah’s participation in the street protests would only lead to the obstruction of the government’s work,” Haddad said. “Hezbollah has no interest in threatening civil peace.”
“There is a general agreement both internally and externally on the need for the Lebanese government to stay in place,” he added. Mouna Fayyad, a writer and a psychology professor at the state-run Lebanese University, said Aoun’s campaign would take the country to “a major crisis,” but without threatening civil peace or the Taif Accord. “I don’t think Aoun’s street protests will help achieve any of his two main goals: His election as president and the appointment of his son-in-law as Army commander,” Fayyad told The Daily Star.
“Instead, I expect Aoun’s campaign to backfire on his already dwindling popularity in Christian areas,” she added. A harsh critic of Iran and Hezbollah, Fayyad, a Shiite, said ordinary Lebanese are expressing surprise and scoffing at the FPM leader’s moves. “They are asking whether Aoun’s moves are a politically wise measure amid a fragile security situation and a worsening economic situation in Lebanon,” she said.Describing the FPM’s protests as an act of “slaughter and suicide,” Fayyad said it is difficult for Hezbollah, which is embroiled in the 4-year-old war in Syria, to participate in these demonstrations.
Aoun puts Lebanon on cusp of political abyss
Hussein Dakroub/The Daily Star/July. 08, 2015
BEIRUT: Lebanon tottered on the verge of a major political crisis Tuesday after MP Michel Aoun vowed to forge ahead with his campaign against the government by calling on the Lebanese to participate in what he dubbed “a fateful battle” to regain Christian rights in the public administration. In a fiery speech ahead of anti-government street protests planned by his Free Patriotic Movement’s supporters, Aoun lashed out at Prime Minister Tammam Salam, accusing him of acting as if he were president.
“During the presidential vacuum, the president’s powers are shifted to the Cabinet combined. But today, the prime minister is exercising his powers and the president’s powers. This is unacceptable,” Aoun told reporters after chairing a weekly meeting of his parliamentary Change and Reform bloc at his residence in Rabieh.“We [in the Cabinet] agreed on a particular mechanism to assume the prerogatives [of the presidency], but ministers are now being eliminated,” he said, adding that violating the Cabinet’s decision-making mechanism would sideline the Constitution. The parliamentary Future bloc blasted the FPM’s insistence on obstructing the Cabinet’s work, saying the group’s street protests would destabilize the country.
“The FPM’s insistence on paralyzing the wheel of production unless the majority submits to the minority’s demands in the Cabinet constitutes a blatant attack on democracy, the Constitution and laws,” the bloc said in a statement after its weekly meeting.
Although the FPM’s hint at resorting to street demonstrations is a democratic right, the bloc said, “the protests in these politically and security dangerous and sensitive circumstances through which Lebanon and the region are passing would cause further damage and deterioration in the country’s stability, destroy the people’s interests and properties and increase the level of tension and extremism.”
Asked to comment on the FPM’s planned protests, Speaker Nabih Berri said he did not want to engage in a row with anyone. Referring to Aoun, who said Tuesday that he was the son of the state rather than the son of the political system, Berri was quoted as saying by visitors at his Ain al-Tineh residence: “He who considers himself to be the son of the system or the son of the state cannot do anything that damages or harms the state.” Berri, according to visitors, underscored the need for all politicians to abide by the Constitution in the case of the Cabinet or other cases. In his statement, Aoun described the parliamentary majority as “illegitimate.” “We want the approval of an electoral law that ensures equality and true representation because this is the only way to solve the problem of the [political] system. The current majority [in Parliament], including myself, is illegitimate.”
“The current Parliament is illegitimate and does not have the right to elect a president,” he said. “After all the recent regional developments and the emergence of ISIS and Nusra … we should at least refer to the people. It is unacceptable that this majority elects a president.”
Aoun spelled the death knell for the country’s power-sharing system, which is based on the 1989 Taif Accord, and half of state institutions. Aoun, a presidential candidate backed by the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance, called for holding parliamentary elections based on a new electoral law to be followed by the election of a president. Aoun has called on his supporters in the Free Patriotic Movement to stage street demonstrations against the government for passing a decree last week allotting $21 million to help export agricultural and industrial products by sea, while ignoring the FPM ministers’ demand to discuss the appointment of senior military and security officers.The FPM leader did not set the zero hour for his supporters to take to the streets, apparently waiting for the outcome of a Cabinet session Thursday to see whether Salam would again opt to discuss items on the agenda as he did last week, while neglecting the contentious issue of security and military appointments.Backed by their allies in Hezbollah, the Marada Movement and the Tashnag Party, the FPM’s ministers have insisted that they would not allow the Cabinet to discuss any topic before it approves appointments of new security chiefs, including the appointment of Aoun’s son-in-law, Brig. Gen. Shamel Roukoz, head of the Army Commando Regiment, as Army commander. In recent weeks, Aoun and his son-in-law, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, have complained that Christians have been marginalized in key public posts and called for the restoration of “lost Christian rights.”
“I have called on the Lebanese to prepare for participation in this battle, which is a fateful battle,” Aoun said. MP Nabil Nicolas from Aoun’s bloc called on the FPM’s supporters to stay at home from 6 a.m. Thursday until the end of the Cabinet session to show “solidarity with the rightful [Christian] demands and in defense of participation [in governance] and genuine partnership.” Aoun read out a letter he had sent to the kings of Saudi Arabia and Morocco, and Algeria’s president on July 10, 2014, during the Arab summit.
In the letter, he argued that politicians ruling Lebanon since the early 1990s had failed to fully implement the Taif Accord, only choosing to follow those parts that marginalized Christians’ interests. “Most politicians know and are declaring that the Taif [Accord] has not been implemented. There is talk among the politicians on the collapse of the Taif [Accord] and the need to think of other solutions,” Aoun said.
