Date: Jul 25, 2019 Source: The Daily Star Hariri set to call for Cabinet session within 48 hours Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star BEIRUT: Prime Minister Saad Hariri is set to call for a Cabinet session in the next 48 hours without waiting for a resolution to the aftermath of the deadly Aley clashes, officials said Wednesday, in a move aimed at ending a three-week government paralysis caused by the incident. “One of the options being studied by Prime Minister Saad Hariri is to call for a Cabinet session in the next 48 hours. The move is intended to reactivate constitutional institutions, above all, the work of the Cabinet,” Ammar Houri, a political adviser to Hariri, told The Daily Star. Houri said Hariri’s expected move would take place without having to wait for a resolution to the fallout of the June 30 Qabr Shmoun incident that has paralyzed the Cabinet and raised tensions between the two rival Druze parties - the Progressive Socialist Party led by former MP Walid Joumblatt, and the Lebanese Democratic Party headed by MP Talal Arslan. Asked whether the Cabinet could still meet over the weekend if Hariri issued the call for the Cabinet session by Friday, Houri said: “Nothing prevents the Cabinet from meeting over the weekend, or else it will meet early next week.” Hariri has maintained that a resolution to the fallout of the Qabr Shmoun incident was essential to resuming Cabinet sessions, which have been stalled since the shootout in the Aley town that left two men dead and four others wounded. The two men, bodyguards in the convoy of Minister of State for Refugee Affairs Saleh Gharib, were killed in clashes with PSP supporters. Gharib belongs to the LDP. In the aftermath of the gunfight, Hariri postponed a Cabinet session on July 2 in order to avert a split among ministers on which court should be used to adjudicate the Aley clashes. The 30-member Cabinet is equally split over the issue. While the LDP and its allies, the Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah, have called for the incident to be referred to the Judicial Council, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Hariri, the PSP and the Lebanese Forces are opposed to this, arguing that the case could be handled by the regular judiciary. But the case has been officially referred to the Military Tribunal after the Internal Security Forces’ Information Branch concluded its investigation. Nonetheless, the Cabinet could still vote to refer it to the Judicial Council. Berri called on the Cabinet to meet whether or not a consensus is reached on how to adjudicate the Qabr Shmoun incident. During his weekly meeting with MPs at his Ain al-Tineh residence, Berri was quoted as expressing surprise over the failure to call the Cabinet to meet, noting that the Cabinet has not met for three weeks. Berri, according to MPs, cited urgent issues that the Cabinet must address: key state appointments; the garbage problem; matters related to last year’s CEDRE conference; the recent crackdown on undocumented foreign labor, which sparked countrywide protests by Palestinians; and the state’s 2020 budget. Parliament ratified the 2019 state budget last week, which a senior World Bank official Saturday called a “good first step.” Arslan discussed the reverberations of the Qabr Shmoun incident with Berri, in the first meeting between the two since last year’s parliamentary elections when the speaker aligned with Joumblatt. The LDP leader refused to budge on his demand to refer the incident to the Judicial Council. “The Army’s testimony and security reports all indicate that what happened was a direct attack on civil peace and the state’s security and that the normal place [to adjudicate it] is the Judicial Council,” Arslan, who was accompanied by Gharib, told reporters after their meeting with Berri at Ain al-Tineh. “Our aim is not to twist anyone’s arms or take revenge against anyone.” In the absence of consensus among ministers over the request to refer the case to the Judicial Council, Arslan called for a Cabinet vote on this issue. Responding to Hariri and PSP ministers who reject that the Cabinet discusses the issue of the Judicial Council, Arslan said: “For someone to say he refuses to raise the issue at the Cabinet, this means he bears responsibility for what happened. This matter befits neither the prime minister, nor the minister who says he refuses to raise it at the Cabinet.” Regarding mediation efforts to resolve the incident’s fallout, Arslan said that attempts by Berri and General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim had failed. In what appeared to be a quick response to Arslan, Joumblatt called for combining the Qabr Shmoun incident with last year’s clashes between PSP and LDP supporters in the Aley town of Choueifat that resulted in the killing of PSP supporter Ala Abi Faraj and referring them to the Judicial Council. The suspected killer, identified as Amine Souki, was reported to be a LDP “security” official close to Arslan. Souki remains at large and was reported to have fled to Syria. “As a reminder, Al Basateen [Qabr Shmoun] incident was the result of lawlessness manifested in some military parades that culminated in the Choueifat crime, whose culprit escaped to Syria. Therefore, I believe it’s time to combine the two cases and the relevant authorities will decide whether there is a need for the Judicial Council to investigate the two cases together,” Joumblatt tweeted. Separately, Hariri said the government was determined to carry out a number of structural reforms at all levels in the country, especially in terms of changing the way of thinking and modernizing old laws. “We started to modernize a large number of laws, to re-evaluate the structure of the state and we hope to adopt a new approach in work, in order to reach e-government,” Hariri told 33 Lebanese students who are currently studying abroad and visiting Lebanon as part of the political tourism program organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “For us, CEDRE is a key engine for re-launching the economy alongside the McKinsey’s study of 1,500 projects in different productive sectors, including agriculture, telecommunications, industry, tourism, religious, culture, archaeological sites.” “We certainly have many problems, especially garbage, which is one of the major problems facing the country. Last month we held weekly meetings to find a solution to this crisis. I think that by the end of August we will have a solution but the problem is that there is a lack of confidence among Lebanese citizens in any project, whether to turn waste into energy or any other solution,” Hariri said. “What we have to do as a government is to find solutions and make sure they are implemented at the highest international standards, and then we’re done with this problem.”