ANSD : Lebanon: Disputed budget article creates new govt rift

SAT 23 - 11 - 2024

Date: Jul 26, 2019
Source: The Daily Star

Lebanon: Disputed budget article creates new govt rift

_{Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star}
BEIRUT: Gloom dominated the political scene Thursday after all mediation efforts to find a resolution to the fallout of the deadly Aley clashes, seen essential to reviving the stalled Cabinet sessions, foundered on the rock of opposite positions by the rival parties. Worse still, a new rift emerged over a controversial article that had been added to the 2019 state budget, further complicating attempts to reconvene the Cabinet, which has been paralyzed since the June 30 Qabr Shmoun incident.

Despite the bleak outlook, Prime Minister Saad Hariri is determined to call for a Cabinet session next week to deal with a host of challenges facing the country following Parliament’s ratification of the state budget last week, according to a Future Movement lawmaker.

Hariri Thursday discussed the three-week Cabinet deadlock and the addition of an article to the 2019 state budget during a meeting with President Michel Aoun.

“The meeting discussed the general situation in the country and the results of ongoing consultations and contacts to follow up on the repercussions of the Qabr Shmoun incident, and Parliament’s ratification of the budget,” a statement released by Aoun’s media office said. Hariri did not call for a Cabinet session as he was widely expected to do after the meeting with Aoun at Baabda Palace.

“Hope for the best and you will find it,” Hariri told reporters briefly when asked about the outcome of his talks with the president.

Political sources said Hariri’s talks with Aoun focused on resuming the Cabinet sessions, the latest initiative presented by former MP Walid Joumblatt, the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, to end the standoff over the Qabr Shmoun incident, as well as the addition of an article to the state budget.

A political source familiar with the case expressed cautious optimism over ongoing attempts to break the impasse. “Contacts are being made today [Thursday] and tomorrow [Friday] to promote the idea of referring the Qabr Shmoun and Choueifat incidents together to the Judicial Council,” the source told The Daily Star, referring to Joumblatt’s proposal to combine the two incidents and refer them to the council.

Referring to the disputed article that had been added to the state budget, the source said among ideas being floated to solve this issue was either to eliminate the article from the budget law, or have it annulled by the Constitutional Council.

Aoun has so far refrained from signing the state budget law, a day after it was inked by Speaker Nabih Berri and Hariri. Aoun’s signature is required for the law to be promulgated in the Official Gazette and subsequently put it into effect.

Parliament last week passed the budget with a majority of 83 MPs voting in favor and 17 against. The budget contains a string of austerity measures and tax hikes that aim to reduce the deficit to 6.59 percent of gross domestic product from 11.1 percent of GDP last year. The article in question would officially employ Civil Service Council applicants who have passed their exams but have yet to be hired due to political squabbling.

“[The article] was added after the [Parliament] session, in a violation of the Constitution, because there is a clear separation of executive and legislative authorities,” a political source told The Daily Star.

Successful civil service applicants for a number of public institutions have been demanding their right to be appointed to their respective posts in recent years, but remain unemployed because of a sectarian imbalance between Christian and Muslim applicants.

Due to a lack of consensus in Parliament, the article has not been approved and was reportedly removed from the draft budget during Parliament’s four-day discussion of the budget last week.

“The decision to appoint employees by the state is an executive one and to be made by the Cabinet, not Parliament,” the source added.

Future MP Mohammad Hajjar said Hariri would call for a Cabinet session to be held next week without having to wait for a resolution to the aftermath of the Qabr Shmoun incident that has obstructed the Cabinet’s work and heightened tensions between the two rival Druze parties - the PSP and the Lebanese Democratic Party headed by MP Talal Arslan.

“Prime Minister Hariri will call for a Cabinet session next week in order for the Cabinet to be able to do its job under the current difficult circumstances through which the country is passing,” Hajjar told The Daily Star.

“Prime Minister Hariri insists on setting the work of constitutional institutions in order and will not accept the obstruction of the Cabinet’s role because there are things that require the Cabinet to work at its full capacity to fulfill the requirements of the budget’s endorsement and the launching of investment projects approved at the CEDRE conference,” he said.

Cabinet sessions 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.

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, Berri, Hariri, the PSP and the Lebanese Forces are opposed to this, arguing that the case could be handled by the regular judiciary.

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.

After talks with Berri Wednesday, Arslan stood firm on his demand to refer the incident to the Judicial Council. He said mediation attempts by Berri and General Security chief Abbas Ibrahim to resolve the incident’s aftermath had failed.

Rami Rayyes, the head of the PSP’s media office, said Joumblatt was waiting for a response to his initiative, which calls for combining the Qabr Shmoun and Choueifat incidents.

But the LDP rejected Joumblatt’s proposal. “Joumblatt’s initiative is unacceptable because a long time had passed on the Choueifat incident. It was also the result of an armed clash and the judiciary arrested the wanted people involved and investigated with the accused,” Walid Barakat, the LDP’s secretary-general, told the Central News Agency.

Arslan has rejected attempts to link 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. 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.

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