ANSD : Lebanon: Cabinet wins confidence in 111-6 vote

FRI 19 - 4 - 2024

Date: Feb 16, 2019
Source: The Daily Star

Lebanon: Cabinet wins confidence in 111-6 vote

_{Timour Azhari| The Daily Star}
BEIRUT: Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s third government received overwhelming confidence Friday in a late-night vote on the third day of often-divisive discussions on his Cabinet’s policy statement. The vote does away with the last obstacle keeping ministers from the serious work they must begin in order to remedy Lebanon’s increasingly desperate economic, financial and social situation. The Cabinet received 111 votes of confidence and six no confidence votes, with 11 MPs absent when the decisive vote was held just after 11 p.m. Friday.

Votes of no confidence came from the Kataeb Party’s three MPs, in addition to Paula Yacoubian, Jamil al-Sayyed and Osama Saad.

“We, the government, feel your pain, and know your hopes for how your country should be and how you should be living in it,” Hariri said in an address before the vote was held. “We promise you that all our work will be to achieve economic revitalization so you may have a dignified life in your country.”

The Lebanese were fed up of out-bidding by politicians, Hariri said: “They want work, and my decision and that of the government is to work then work then work.”

The new government has got its work cut out for it. In the nine months since Lebanon last had a functioning Cabinet, the economic and financial situation has deteriorated, and warnings of an impending collapse have come from top officials, including the finance minister.

Just before Hariri spoke, Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil issued a dire warning that ministers would have to reconsider their budget hopes for 2019 if the Cabinet was going to hit the goal of drastically lowering spending. “If you take the numbers that the ministers and ministries have put forward for what they expect to get ... we will not see a decrease by 1 percent, but an increase by 3 or 4 percent,” he said.

One of the major drains on the

state’s coffers is the ailing electricity sector. Setting an ambitious goal, Hariri said that 2019 would be the year in which the solution would finally be found, “otherwise we will all have failed.”Hariri had read out his Cabinet’s policy statement in full Tuesday, laying out the government’s agenda that puts reforms associated with the CEDRE conference last spring front and center.

According to the statement, his government will focus on state finances, the economy, the refugee issue, the electricity sector and the participation of women in public and political life.

With the vote now over, Parliament is out of session until March 19, though Berri, in remarks to Mustaqbal Web published earlier Friday, said that he was determined to regularly chair legislative sessions.

The resounding vote of confidence capped off a tumultuous day at Parliament which saw both conciliatory and aggressive interactions. Shortly after Friday’s session opened, the leader of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, MP Mohammad Raad, stood up and apologized on behalf of his bloc for MP Nawwaf Musawi’s controversial comments at Wednesday’s session about slain former President-elect Bachir Gemayel.

After a heated dispute with Kataeb Party MPs Nadim and Sami Gemayel over Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon including their role in bringing President Michel Aoun to power Musawi said he was proud that “Aoun was brought to the presidency by the rifle of Hezbollah and not on the back of an Israeli tank like others.” This was in reference to Bachir Gemayel, Nadim’s father, who had relations with Israeli officials and whose election was enabled by their presence in Beirut.

An outraged Nadim Gemayel had described Musawi’s words as shameful. Later Wednesday night, he participated in a Kataeb-organized rally in Sassine Square in rejection of the “slander” of Bachir Gemayel, where he also said the party was ready to re-arm.

Raad Friday requested in the name of Hezbollah’s Loyalty to the Resistance bloc to erase Musawi’s comments from the session’s records something which Berri said he had already done. Musawi’s comments resulted from “a personal agitation and crossed the line of our adopted speech,” Raad said.

The apology was met with resounding applause from lawmakers, including Kataeb’s MPs.

Musawi was not at Parliament Friday.

Sami Gemayel, meanwhile, challenged Hezbollah to hand in its arms to Aoun, saying his election presents an opportunity for Hezbollah to fulfill its promise to do so once it had “trust in the state.”

“And because you have a president you trust, a [near] majority in Parliament and orchestrated the government formation, why don’t you submit your arms now to President Aoun?” he said.

Hezbollah, along with its allies, constitute more than half of both Parliament and Cabinet.

Over the course of the three days of discussions amounting to about 24 hours total 54 MPs took the podium. On many occasions, the wide divide between MPs boiled over into shouting matches.

The last major squabble took place Friday between Hariri and MP Jamil al-Sayyed over disparaging comments the latter made about a young MP in Hariri’s Future Movement bloc, Sami Fatfat.

During his address, Fatfat hit back at remarks Sayyed had made at Tuesday’s Parliament session, when the pro-Syrian MP called on Hariri to “apologize” for his four-year imprisonment over alleged involvement in the 2005 assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri, Saad Hariri’s father. Sayyed was later cleared of the charges.

Fatfat hit back by indirectly calling on Sayyed to apologize for “every man arrested between 1992 and 2005 because of certain political opinions” and “fabricated cases.” Sayyed was head of General Security from 1998 till 2005.

Sayyed hit back, belittling the freshman MP as a “youngster” who was “born yesterday.”

At this point, Hariri jumped out of his chair and angrily asked Berri to remove Sayyed’s words form the record. He told Sayyed, “It would be best if you don’t talk. Respect yourself.”

Berri intervened, shouting, “What’s the issue?” to which Hariri, replied: “The issue is that he is a person who has no respect for martyrs.”

Some Future MPs stood up and gestured angrily at Sayyed during the altercation, and Information Minister Jamal Jarrah got up, shouted “Shut your mouth,” and approached Sayyed. Lawmakers intervened to prevent the two from getting close.

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