By Hassan Lakkis
Thursday, March 24, 2011

BEIRUT: The country’s new Cabinet to be headed by Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati is expected to see the light later this week or beginning next week, with several Lebanese envoys making the trip to Damascus Wednesday to discuss the draft government lineup with the Syrian administration.

Syrian President Bashar Assad held talks with Marada Movement leader Suleiman Franjieh and the discussion mainly focused on government formation in Lebanon, according to a statement carried by Syria’s state-run SANA news agency.
Other senior figures from the March 8 alliance also paid undisclosed visits to the Syrian capital to discuss Cabinet formation.

According to political sources, wide-ranging contacts that took place over the last 48 hours between Mikati, the March 8 alliance and Syrian officials indicated that the new government was expected to “see the light very soon,” later this week or beginning next week.
Speaker Nabih Berri told visiting MPs that a new government should be immediately formed so as to face the many challenges threatening Lebanon.

“A national salvation Cabinet should be formed soon to confront the major internal and external challenges that face Lebanon,” Berri was quoted as telling MPs who visited him at his residence in Ain al-Tineh.
Sources close to Lebanese President Michel Sleiman said he approved a draft Cabinet lineup presented to him Tuesday by Mikati.

But sources close to Mikati and sources from the March 8 coalition agreed that the main hurdle facing Cabinet formation remains the Interior Ministry portfolio, which both Sleiman and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun are vying for.

The sources, however, kept mum over contacts being undertaken among various groups to reconcile Sleiman and Aoun’s demands.
The delay in forming the Cabinet has been blamed mainly on Aoun’s insistence on the lion’s share of Christian participation in the Cabinet, including the Interior Ministry portfolio.

The sources also ruled out the chance of Mikati abandoning his mission to form the Cabinet, adding that Damascus was keen on having the telecom tycoon succeed in his task even if he ends up forming a Cabinet that does not entirely please all groups within the March 8 alliance.

The fiery statements exchanged between Sleiman and Aoun over the past two days revealed that the gap between the two former Lebanese Army generals was still wide.
Sleiman tacitly accused the FPM leader Wednesday of impeding efforts to form a new government.

Speaking to a delegation from the Progressive Thought Forum, Sleiman said young Lebanese people should not only hold corrupt politicians accountable but also “all those who impeded the achievement of constitutional processes within the required deadlines and failed to preserve the unity of national institutions and the country in the past decades.”

“The Constitution is very clear as to the mechanism employed to form a Cabinet and any attempt to interpret [this mechanism] amounts to yet another attempt to obstruct the formation of a new government,” added the president.
Aoun had criticized Sleiman’s comments that he will not sign the decree for a one-sided Cabinet. Aoun accused Sleiman Tuesday of “paralyzing power” and dealing a blow to democracy and the country’s Constitution.

Political sources said that if a middle ground between Aoun and Sleiman was not reached before the end of the week, the president and the Prime Minister-designate might resort to announcing a de-facto Cabinet.
The sources also confirmed that Mikati was moving toward forming a 26-member Cabinet, with Aoun being allotted eight ministers.

The same sources added that the four so-called “sovereign” portfolios, the Interior, Defense, Finance, and Foreign ministries, would be respectively allotted to Ziyad Baroud, Nicholas Nahhas, Mohammad Safadi, and Jihad Mortada.
Other names proposed include Shakib Qortbawi for the Justice Ministry, Ghazi Aridi for the Public Works and Transportation Ministry, Jibran Bassil for the Electricity and Water Resources Ministry, and Alaeddine Tirro for the Labor Ministry.

The head of the Beirut Bar Association, Amal Haddad, is also expected to be part of the new Cabinet, but the portfolio she will be allotted remains unknown.