Date: Jan 26, 2019 Source: The Daily Star Hariri firm on formation of government: Future MPs Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star BEIRUT: Armed with “positive” developments in the monthslong Cabinet formation process, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri is determined to set up a new government to avoid the reactivation of the caretaker Cabinet, Future Movement MPs said Friday. The Future lawmakers also entirely ruled out the possibility of Hariri stepping down from his mission to form a national unity government in which all the main political parties are represented as he had promised. Meanwhile, France expressed concern over the delay in the Cabinet formation, warning it would not be able to deliver on its financial commitments to Lebanon made at the CEDRE conference. The warning was issued by French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian who regretted the failure to form a new government more than eight months after the May parliamentary elections. “It’s the responsibility of all Lebanese political [leaders] to work to break this political deadlock ... Due to this political deadlock, we cannot honor all commitments we made for Lebanon, including financial ones, and toward the Lebanese Army which, despite everything, remains the cornerstone of the state’s equilibrium,” Le Drian told reporters in Paris. The French minister’s statement was the latest in a series of warnings by Lebanese and foreign officials that a prolonged government crisis would lead to an economic collapse, as well as to the loss of over $11 billion in grants and soft loans pledged by international donors at the CEDRE conference held in Paris last year to help shore up Lebanon’s ailing economy. As the Cabinet formation gridlock entered this week its ninth month, Hariri, who was designated to form a new government May 24, was apparently left with three options: Form a new government, reactivate the caretaker Cabinet, or step aside. “The main option for Prime Minister Hariri is to form a new government. He is insisting on forming a new government because this will give a good and important impression for the international community,” Future MP Assem Araji told The Daily Star. “The reactivation of the caretaker Cabinet will not encourage the international community to help Lebanon.” “The biggest and most plausible possibility is the formation of a new government, given the positive things Hariri had talked about,” Araji said, adding: “But if the formation of a new government proves difficult to achieve, then all options become possible, except stepping down.”“Stepping down is entirely out of the question for Hariri,” Araji said. Future MP Mohammad Hajjar also dismissed the possibility of Hariri giving up his efforts to form a new government, but said the reactivation of the outgoing Cabinet was an option. “Prime Minister Hariri’s top priority is to form a new government because this is an urgent matter at present,” Hajjar told The Daily Star. “Prime Minister Hariri had encountered a series of obstacles and hurdles in his attempts to form a national unity Cabinet.” “But if obstacles continue to stall the Cabinet formation, the reactivation of the caretaker Cabinet will become an option to tackle the people’s daily life problems, and also to convene a special Cabinet session to endorse the 2019 [draft state] budget,” Hajjar said. Speaker Nabih Berri called Wednesday for the caretaker Cabinet to meet to endorse the 2019 draft state budget if a new government is not formed soon. He also said he would convene Parliament for successive legislative sessions to ratify the draft budget once it has been approved by the caretaker Cabinet. Hariri, who has launched a fresh flurry of consultations with top leaders aimed at breaking the Cabinet formation impasse, said Wednesday he would make a final decision on the Cabinet formation process next week after citing “positive” developments in the issue. His statement has since evoked an air of optimism about a possible breakthrough in the Cabinet stalemate. Hariri had met with Berri, caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil and former MP Walid Joumblatt, the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, before he left Beirut for Paris Thursday for a “short family visit.” His talks centered on a swap of some ministerial portfolios among the three leaders’ blocs, as well as resolving the problem of representing six Hezbollah-backed Sunni MPs from outside the Future Movement. Media reports said Hariri was expected to meet in Paris again with Bassil, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, whose consent to any Cabinet lineup is crucial for resolving the six MPs’ representation problem, which has stalled the government formation since October. Hezbollah has kept mum on rising optimism about resolving the Cabinet formation crisis. “We hope that Prime Minister Hariri’s intensified flurry of activity will produce solutions to overcome barriers to the formation of a new government,” caretaker Minister of Youth and Sports Mohammed Fneish, one of two Hezbollah ministers in the outgoing Cabinet, told The Daily Star. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah was scheduled to talk about the Cabinet deadlock and other regional issues during a televised interview with Al-Mayedeen channel Saturday night, breaking silence of more than two months that has sparked rumors about his health. Meanwhile, the six Sunni MPs restated their demand for being represented in the next Cabinet by a minister exclusively for their group, known as the “Consultative Gathering.” They also rejected giving a veto power to any party or bloc, in an indirect swipe at Bassil, who was reported to be seeking, along with President Michel Aoun’s share, 11 ministers in a 30-member Cabinet that would grant them a veto power. “The Consultative Gathering expressed its resentment over the Cabinet formation standstill, even though the designation has entered its ninth month. The main reason for this is the prime minister-designate’s refusal to recognize the results of the parliamentary elections because they put an end to the monopoly of the Sunni sect’s representation,” MP Jihad al-Samad, one of the six MPs, said in a statement after the group met at his residence in the northern city of Tripoli. “We will only accept to be represented in a national unity government by one of the six MPs, or by one of the three names nominated from outside the Gathering for this purpose,” Samad added. The six MPs had nominated Othman Majzoub, Taha Naji and Hasan Mrad, son of MP Abdel-Rahim Mrad, one of the six, to exclusively represent them in the new government. Also Friday, Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai chaired a meeting of a committee representing the country’s main Christian parties, which was formed after last week's meeting of Maronite leaders in Bkirki, to follow up on the topics contained in the final communiqué issued after the Bkirki meeting. The meeting reviewed the “positive developments concerning the Cabinet formation issue and stressed the need to speed up the formation and unify efforts toward this goal,” the state-run National News Agency reported.