Lebanon Parliament Speaker Opposes Way Cabinet Being Formed

Date: 13 September 2020 - 21:38

News ID: ۸۲۷۳۶

BEIRUT (Dispatches) – Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker said his group opposed the way the prime minister-designate was forming a new cabinet and that it would not join on those terms, but that he would still cooperate to stabilize the nation in crisis, his office said.
The office of Nabih Berri, head of the Amal movement which is allied to the powerful resistance movement Hezbollah, listed in a statement criticisms of the way the cabinet was being formed by Mustapha Adib, including a lack of consultations.
"The problem is not with the French, the problem is internal,” Berri’s office said in its statement.
French President Emmanuel Macron held a call with the Lebanese parliamentary speaker on this week’s deadline for forming a new government, a Lebanese politician said on Sunday.
Feeling under pressure by the French president, Lebanon’s leadership promised Macron in Beirut on Sept. 1 that they would form a government of technocrats without party loyalties in about two weeks. They have just days left.
A senior political source said it would take a "miracle” to meet the deadline. Forming a cabinet usually takes months.
Kassem Hachem, a senior figure in Berri’s parliamentary bloc, said Macron spoke to Berri on Saturday.
Hachem said Berri insisted that the finance ministry, at the centre of the impasse, should stay in the hands of the Shia community, which has typically held the post under Lebanon’s sectarian power sharing arrangements.
The cabinet is being formed by Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adeeb who quit as ambassador to Berlin to take the post. He has made few public comments, but sources have said he wants to shake up the leadership of ministries, some of which have been controlled by the same sectarian factions for years.
Lebanon is facing its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. The banking crisis sent the currency into tailspin, plunging many Lebanese into poverty.
Donors pledged billions of dollars in 2018 but funds were not disbursed because they claimed that Lebanon failed to deliver reforms.