Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Lebanon tottered on the verge of a major political crisis Tuesday after MP Michel Aoun vowed to forge ahead with his campaign against the government by calling on the Lebanese to participate in what he dubbed “a fateful battle” to regain Christian rights in the public administration.
In a fiery speech ahead of anti-government street protests planned by his Free Patriotic Movement’s supporters, Aoun lashed out at Prime Minister Tammam Salam, accusing him of acting as if he were president.
“During the presidential vacuum, the president’s powers are shifted to the Cabinet combined. But today, the prime minister is exercising his powers and the president’s powers. This is unacceptable,” Aoun told reporters after chairing a weekly meeting of his parliamentary Change and Reform bloc at his residence in Rabieh.
“We [in the Cabinet] agreed on a particular mechanism to assume the prerogatives [of the presidency], but ministers are now being eliminated,” he said, adding that violating the Cabinet’s decision-making mechanism would sideline the Constitution.
The parliamentary Future bloc blasted the FPM’s insistence on obstructing the Cabinet’s work, saying the group’s street protests would destabilize the country.
“The FPM’s insistence on paralyzing the wheel of production unless the majority submits to the minority’s demands in the Cabinet constitutes a blatant attack on democracy, the Constitution and laws,” the bloc said in a statement after its weekly meeting.
Although the FPM’s hint at resorting to street demonstrations is a democratic right, the bloc said, “the protests in these politically and security dangerous and sensitive circumstances through which Lebanon and the region are passing would cause further damage and deterioration in the country’s stability, destroy the people’s interests and properties and increase the level of tension and extremism.”
Asked to comment on the FPM’s planned protests, Speaker Nabih Berri said he did not want to engage in a row with anyone.
Referring to Aoun, who said Tuesday that he was the son of the state rather than the son of the political system, Berri was quoted as saying by visitors at his Ain al-Tineh residence: “He who considers himself to be the son of the system or the son of the state cannot do anything that damages or harms the state.”
Berri, according to visitors, underscored the need for all politicians to abide by the Constitution in the case of the Cabinet or other cases.
In his statement, Aoun described the parliamentary majority as “illegitimate.” “We want the approval of an electoral law that ensures equality and true representation because this is the only way to solve the problem of the [political] system. The current majority [in Parliament], including myself, is illegitimate.”
“The current Parliament is illegitimate and does not have the right to elect a president,” he said. “After all the recent regional developments and the emergence of ISIS and Nusra … we should at least refer to the people. It is unacceptable that this majority elects a president.”
Aoun spelled the death knell for the country’s power-sharing system, which is based on the 1989 Taif Accord, and half of state institutions.
Aoun, a presidential candidate backed by the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance, called for holding parliamentary elections based on a new electoral law to be followed by the election of a president.
Aoun has called on his supporters in the Free Patriotic Movement to stage street demonstrations against the government for passing a decree last week allotting $21 million to help export agricultural and industrial products by sea, while ignoring the FPM ministers’ demand to discuss the appointment of senior military and security officers.
The FPM leader did not set the zero hour for his supporters to take to the streets, apparently waiting for the outcome of a Cabinet session Thursday to see whether Salam would again opt to discuss items on the agenda as he did last week, while neglecting the contentious issue of security and military appointments.Backed by their allies in Hezbollah, the Marada Movement and the Tashnag Party, the FPM’s ministers have insisted that they would not allow the Cabinet to discuss any topic before it approves appointments of new security chiefs, including the appointment of Aoun’s son-in-law, Brig. Gen. Shamel Roukoz, head of the Army Commando Regiment, as Army commander.
In recent weeks, Aoun and his son-in-law, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, have complained that Christians have been marginalized in key public posts and called for the restoration of “lost Christian rights.”
“I have called on the Lebanese to prepare for participation in this battle, which is a fateful battle,” Aoun said.
MP Nabil Nicolas from Aoun’s bloc called on the FPM’s supporters to stay at home from 6 a.m. Thursday until the end of the Cabinet session to show “solidarity with the rightful [Christian] demands and in defense of participation [in governance] and genuine partnership.”
Aoun read out a letter he had sent to the kings of Saudi Arabia and Morocco, and Algeria’s president on July 10, 2014, during the Arab summit.
In the letter, he argued that politicians ruling Lebanon since the early 1990s had failed to fully implement the Taif Accord, only choosing to follow those parts that marginalized Christians’ interests.
“Most politicians know and are declaring that the Taif [Accord] has not been implemented. There is talk among the politicians on the collapse of the Taif [Accord] and the need to think of other solutions,” Aoun said.