Date: Nov 21, 2018 Source: The Daily Star Lebanon: Bassil fails to break Sunni MPs’ representation impasse Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star BEIRUT: Caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil failed Monday during a meeting with the six Hezbollah-backed Sunni lawmakers demanding representation in the new government to make any breakthrough in the issue that has held up the Cabinet formation since last month. The lack of progress, coupled with the parties’ refusal to soften their conflicting positions on the issue of representing the six Sunni MP in the next government, threatens to further prolong the Cabinet formation process, now in its sixth month. Instead, Bassil, the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, called on the six Sunni MPs not affiliated with the Future Movement to meet with Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri to try to find a solution to the problem of their representation, which has been rejected outright by Hariri. Speaking to reporters after the meeting held at MP Abdel-Rahim Mrad’s residence, Bassil said the Future Movement and Hariri and the six Sunni MPs are the ones involved in the representation problem. “I call on the parties directly concerned with the [Cabinet] formation, Prime Minister Hariri and the [six] opposition MPs, to hold a direct meeting to resolve this problem and clarify things. The meeting is a means to reach an understanding,” Bassil said. Mrad said Bassil, who has been assigned by President Michel Aoun to advance an initiative aimed at resolving the problem, made a proposal during the meeting that he hoped would resolve the issue. The proposal, according to Mrad, calls for “restoring the six Sunni seats to the prime minister-designate and for the president to take back the Maronite seat from Hariri.” The proposal also calls for naming one of the six Sunni MPs as minister who would be among the five Sunni ministers allotted to the prime minister. In the outgoing Cabinet, Hariri has four Sunni ministers and a Maronite minister as part of his share, while the sixth Sunni minister is part of Aoun’s share. “We have accepted Bassil’s proposal and now it’s up to Prime Minister Hariri to decide on it,” Mrad told The Daily Star. He said the six MPs would Tuesday request a meeting with Hariri to discuss this proposal along with their demand to be represented in a national unity government. “We can’t say things are positive or negative before our meeting with Prime Minister Hariri,” he added. Mrad said Bassil recognized the six MPs’ right to be represented in the next government. “He [Bassil] even promised to try to convince Hariri of this right,” he said. Mrad said if Hariri rejected Bassil’s proposal, “he would then be the one who is obstructing the Cabinet formation.” But a member of the Future Movement’s parliamentary bloc poured cold water on Bassil’s proposal, saying Hariri would not accept the six MPs to be represented in the next government either from the Future share or from other blocs’ share. “Prime Minister Hariri and the Future bloc have taken a final decision not name any of the six Sunni MPs as minister in the new Cabinet, neither from the Future share, nor from the share of others,” MP Assem Araji told The Daily Star. Araji appeared to be skeptical about the outcome of any planned meeting between Hariri and the six MPs to resolve the representation issue. “Such a meeting will not lead to any positive results,” he said. Hariri has stood firm on his refusal to cede one seat from the Future Movement’s share to the six MPs because they had not formed a unified political bloc. Bassil’s meeting with the six MPs capped the FPM leader’s week-long flurry of talks with top political and religious leaders in an attempt to find a solution to the MP’ representation issue that has posed the last obstacle to the Cabinet formation. Bassil said Aoun was not “taking sides” on the issue, after the president previously announced his support for Hariri and his rejection of the Sunni MPs’ demand. “In confirmation of this, there is no objection to return the Christian minister [part of Hariri’s share] to the president and the Sunni minister [part of Aoun’s share] to return to the prime minister. This will help the two sides [Hariri and the six MPs] to reach a solution,” Bassil said. Meanwhile, the Future Movement’s parliamentary bloc said a Cabinet lineup was ready, with all political parties willing, except for the side that “insists on imposing its conditions,” alluding to Hezbollah. “The government lineup is ready, with the will and participation of most political parties, with the exception of the side that is still not joining the ranks and insists on imposing its conditions for representing the group of six [MPs],” the bloc said in a statement after its weekly meeting chaired by Hariri. The bloc stressed that the role entrusted to Hariri in forming the government “is at the core of his constitutional powers, which allow him to determine the appropriate options for the formation.” “The new obstacles to government formation are not justified, and that those responsible for them must bear the consequences,” the statement said. The bloc praised Aoun’s efforts in breaking the deadlock and renewed its call to facilitate the prime minister-designate’s task. Hariri won backing for his Cabinet formation efforts from Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian, who said that no political side can impose conditions on the prime minister-designate, in an implicit jab at Hezbollah. In a televised address marking the Prophet Mohammad’s Birthday, which will be observed Tuesday, Derian said the latest obstacle to the Cabinet formation was not “a Sunni obstacle, but a political obstacle that was recently raised.” “Dar al-Fatwa considers that the delay in the Cabinet formation is due to a political dispute. The one who forms the government is the prime minister-designate in cooperation and understanding with the president,” Derian said, adding: “It is not acceptable for any political side to impose conditions on them.”