ANSD : Lebanon: Diab headed for ‘one-sided’ Cabinet

FRI 19 - 4 - 2024

Date: Dec 31, 2019
Source: The Daily Star

Lebanon: Diab headed for ‘one-sided’ Cabinet

_{Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star}
BEIRUT: Prime Minister-designate Hassan Diab is headed toward forming a “one-sided” government after four major parties refused to take part, raising the stakes of Lebanon being deprived of promised financial aid from the international community. This comes after Diab has apparently failed to convince the Future Movement, the Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb Party and the Progressive Socialist Party to participate in a government of specialists independent of political parties.

“With the absence of these four parties, any government to be formed by Hassan Diab will be viewed as a one-sided government that carries the risks of Lebanon being deprived of financial aid promised by the international community,” Future Movement MP Mohammad Hajjar told The Daily Star Monday.

“I am afraid that the one-sided government might not encourage the international community to extend the promised financial aid to Lebanon,” he said.

Hajjar reiterated the Future bloc’s decision not to participate in any government formed by Diab, who was designated for the job by President Michel Aoun on Dec. 19 after gaining the support of a parliamentary majority and after caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri withdrew from the premiership race.

In a rebuff to his designation, Hariri’s Future Movement, along with the LF, the PSP and the Kataeb Party have told Diab they would not participate in the government.

Diab telephoned LF leader Samir Geagea to extend Christmas and New Year greetings. Geagea was reported to have told the premier-designate: “The Lebanese Forces does not want to be represented [in the government] and will watch the formation and performance.”

Similarly, Diab, a university professor and former education minister, was reported to have contacted PSP officials to discuss the party’s naming of Druze ministers in the new government.

Nidaa al-Watan newspaper quoted senior PSP sources as saying: “The [PSP’s] position is still the same, which is not to participate in the government.”

The absence of the Future Movement, the LF, the PSP and the Kataeb Party is bound to characterize Diab’s government as “one-sided” or “confrontational” as it will comprise only representatives of the Free Patriotic Movement, the Amal Movement, Hezbollah and their allies.

This possibility might raise concerns of the international community, which had made financial aid to the protest-hit, cash-strapped country conditional on the formation of an “effective and credible” government committed to implementing key reforms to bolster the flagging economy. The French Foreign Ministry said last week the International Support Group for Lebanon was ready to extend financial support for the country once a new “effective and credible” government was formed to enact reforms to rescue the economy.

The ISGL brings together the United Nations, the governments of China, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, along with the European Union and the Arab League.

Among the major hurdles facing Diab in his attempts to form the next government is the representation of the Sunni sect after some Sunni candidates turned down his invitation to participate. Diab is seeking to overcome this hurdle ahead of a meeting of the Higher Islamic Council to be chaired by Grand Mufti Abdel-Latif Derian on Jan. 4.

Diab badly needs support from Dar al-Fatwa, the country’s highest Sunni religious authority, which has not yet commented on his designation.

But Hajjar ruled out the possibility of Dar al-Fatwa throwing its support behind Diab. “Since the majority of Sunnis did not endorse his designation to form a new government, Dar al-Fatwa is unlikely to give Hassan Diab any kind of support,” Hajjar said. He added that Diab’s designation came against the will of 80 percent of the Sunnis. Only six Sunni MPs nominated Diab for prime minister.

In addition to the Sunni hurdle, Diab is also facing insistence by the two main Shiite parties, the Amal Movement and Hezbollah, to retain one minister each in the next government, a political source familiar with the Cabinet formation process told The Daily Star.

Hezbollah wants to keep Jamil Jabak as health minister, while the Amal Movement wants retain Hasan Lakkis as agriculture minister, the source said.

This prompted Aoun to insist on retaining caretaker Minister for Presidency Affairs Salim Jreissati, and caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil to demand that Nada Boustani keep her post as energy minister in the next government, the source added.

But Diab was reported to have said he does not want any minister from the outgoing Cabinet to be in the new government.

Diab had previously pledged to form a small government made up of “independent specialists” who do not belong to political parties - a major demand of hundreds of thousands of protesters who have taken to the streets since Oct. 17, calling for a change of the decades-old confessional ruling system and the removal of the entire political class they deem corrupt and incompetent.

Hezbollah, which along with the Amal Movement and the FPM, had endorsed Diab’s designation, called for facilitating the Cabinet formation and warned that any attempt to obstruct it would bring Lebanon back to power vacuum.

“Lebanon cannot endure further destruction and obstruction. Despite the many proposals that filled the squares after Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s resignation, everyone realized that the salvation step begins with the formation of a new competent government capable of implementing reforms to deal with the economic, social and financial crises, fight corruption and recover the looted and smuggled money,” Hezbollah’s deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said in a statement.

After Diab has been designated to form a new government, Qassem said, “his mission to form a government must be facilitated. Any attempt to besiege the designation or formation is aiming to bring Lebanon back to vacuum. This is an act against Lebanon’s interest.”

Referring to the four parties that rejected to join the government, Qassem said: “It’s the right and responsibility of the premier-designate to consult with the society’s groups and politicians. But he is not responsible to pause at a ‘veto’ of those who have decided not to participate. They will bear responsibility for their rejection,” Qassem said, adding: “Given a choice between chaos and the beginning of a solution, we support a solution.”

Meanwhile, Banque du Liban has requested all non-banking financial institutions that handle money transfers to pay their customers in Lebanon with the same currency they receive from abroad. This means that the recipients will collect their money in dollars or other foreign currency instead of the Lebanese pound.

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