Hasan Lakkis| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Prime Minister Tammam Salam set a Cabinet session for Thursday, ending three weeks of paralysis that gripped the country’s executive branch due to disagreement over key security appointments.
But Salam’s decision did not herald an agreement on the thorny issue, as ministers from the Free Patriotic Movement continue to insist that appointments should top the session’s agenda.
A source close to Salam said the premier decided to call the session after the time he gave for negotiation expired without an agreement being reached.
“The work of the government has been paralyzed for three weeks and we’ve entered the fourth week now … the interests of people need to be addressed,” the source told The Daily Star Monday.
He added that the agenda would be carried over from the last time the government met.
“Security appointments will not be on the agenda. The prime minister will explain his position and outline the dangers and negative consequences of paralysis before proposing the agenda for discussion,” the source said.
The Cabinet has not convened since June 4 due to the disagreement. FPM ministers vowed to prevent the body from making any decisions before the successors to top security officials were appointed.
FPM leader Michel Aoun supports his son-in-law, Brig. Gen. Shamel Roukoz, chief of the Army’s Commando Regiment, to succeed Army commander Gen. Jean Kawhagi, set to retire in September. He is backed by his allies in Hezbollah, the Tashnag Party and the Marada Movement. The four groups have six ministers in the 24-member national unity government.
The source said that Salam would not adjourn the session after FPM ministers and their allies express their opposition to the agenda.
“We are aware that the opposing factions are major groups in the country, but they have only six ministers while other [Cabinet] groups that also have a political weight are represented by 18 ministers,” the source said. “These groups, including Speaker Nabih Berri, are calling for the normal resumption of Cabinet sessions.”
“We will see what form their opposition will take,” the source said, in reference to FPM ministers and their allies, adding that there were no signs that a breakthrough would be reached before Thursday.
FPM MPs said their two ministers, Elias Bou Saab and Gebran Bassil, would attend Thursday’s session.
Speaking to The Daily Star, the lawmakers said the FPM maintained that no topic should be brought up before security appointments are made. The MPs said they expected a confrontation during the Cabinet session if Salam insisted on proceeding with the agenda without taking their demands into consideration.
They said they did not know whether Salam would adjourn the session after the expected failure to agree on security appointments, but voiced their confidence that Hezbollah ministers would abide by any stance taken by the FPM during the session. The MPs said there was still time to reach a compromise.
Labor Minister Sejaan Azzi, from the Kataeb Party, said the result of the session remains unpredictable.
Speaking to The Daily Star, Azzi said his group would oppose the opening of a special session of Parliament if the issue is raised, reiterating that in the absence of a president, the legislature’s sole mission should be electing one.
Elsewhere, Marada Movement leader Sleiman Frangieh said that the outcome of a presidential poll called for by his allies in the FPM would not affect his own position.
“Aoun is our candidate regardless of the results of the poll,” Frangieh said after receiving FPM MP Ibrahim Kanaan at his residence in Bneshaai, north Lebanon. “We have our political stance … we won’t elect anyone who is against it, even if he comes first in the poll.”
The FPM is planning a presidential poll to determine the most popular candidate among Lebanon’s Christians. The poll was one of four proposals put forward by Aoun last month to break the presidential deadlock.
He said he was doubtful that a Christian poll would be a good indicator of which candidate is most representative of the country’s populace.
“We want a national and a Christian poll, because the presidency is [both] a Christian and a national issue.”
Kanaan also visited Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Kataeb Party head Sami Gemayel to rally support for the poll.
But Future Movement MP Ahmad Fatfat said that polls had no “political value” in Lebanon. “The results of the poll could alter the stance of some Maronite figures, but as for the Future Movement, MPs are the one who elect a president,” Fatfat told the Lebanon debate news website.