Lebanon’s Cabinet Formation Stalling

Date: 16 September 2020 - 21:48

News ID: ۸۲۸۶۵

BEIRUT (Dispatches) – Lebanese politicians have failed to form a government two weeks after French President Emmanuel Macron put the under pressure to accept a September 15 deadline.
President Michel Aoun met the heads of parliamentary blocs at Baabda Palace on Monday and Tuesday, but the leaders were not able to come to an agreement about the make-up of a new cabinet to be led by Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib.
Adib was expected to present the president with a proposed cabinet line-up during a meeting at Baabda Palace on Monday.
But after the 45-minute meeting with Aoun, he said they discussed forming a new government and that "God willing, everything will work out”.
Adib has made few public remarks since his nomination, but he is reportedly seeking a rotation of leadership in the four "sovereign” ministries.
The interior, foreign, finance and defense ministries have been controlled by the same parties in several cabinets, and a shake-up could threaten the parties’ hold over them.
While politicians failed to meet Tuesday’s deadline, Lebanese media has reported that a government may be formed by the end of the week.
"We’re seeing signals that [the political class] are falling back on the same kinds of sectarian battles,” Nadim El Kak, a researcher at the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies, told The National.
The government would have to introduce reforms to help Lebanon recover from an unprecedented economic and financial crisis and the destruction wrought by a devastating port blast in Beirut. The August 4 explosion caused by the detonation of thousands of tons of ammonium nitrates, which killed nearly 200 people, injured thousands and caused losses worth billions of dollars.
Hassan Diab, Adib’s predecessor, announced the resignation of his government on August 10, less than a week after the Beirut port explosion.
Adib, formerly Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany, was given the job of forming a government on August 31 after securing broad support from the political establishment, including Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, Hezbollah and former prime minister Saad Hariri.