Hasan Lakkis| The Daily Star
BEIRUT: The Cabinet is scheduled to meet Thursday amid a split among ministers over a widening food safety campaign and waste treatment, a long-simmering key issue hanging over the government for months.
Parliament, meanwhile, failed Wednesday over a lack of quorum to elect a new president in the 17th abortive attempt since April to break the 7-month-old presidential deadlock, prompting Speaker Nabih Berri to postpone the session to Jan. 28.
A heated debate over solid waste treatment between Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouk and the ministers of health and agriculture Wael Abu Faour and Akram Chehayeb, who belong to MP Walid Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party, is expected during the Cabinet session, ministerial sources said.
They added that discussion of a solid waste treatment plan might be postponed to another session to give more time for consultations to find a solution before Jan. 17, the deadline set by the government last year for the closure of the controversial Naameh landfill, south of Beirut.
Naameh residents have vowed to shut down the landfill by Jan. 17 on their own if the Cabinet failed to do so. Chehayeb warned that the Cabinet would face “a big problem” Thursday due to the rift among ministers over the closure of the Naameh landfill.
Asked if contacts made between the health and agriculture ministers with the Environment Ministry to contain the dispute over waste treatment were successful, Chehayeb told The Daily Star: “We will be facing a big problem during Cabinet’s session tomorrow [Thursday]. The Naameh landfill should be closed. There are solutions [for this problem]. The talk about a technical extension of the landfill is rejected.”
Chehayeb was apparently responding to Machnouk, who said this week the landfill would not be closed on time, warning that garbage would flood streets if the dump was shut down and no alternative was found to waste treatment.
In addition to differences with the PSP’s ministers over solid waste treatment, Machnouk is also at odds with the three Kataeb ministers over this issue. A meeting was held Wednesday between Machnouk and Kataeb Party leader Amine Gemayel along with the Kataeb ministers and lawmakers at the party’s headquarters in Saifi in a bid to narrow differences and find a solution to this problem.
The Cabinet will also tackle a war of words pitting Abu Faour against Economy Minister Alain Hakim over the health minister’s food safety campaign. Hakim had criticized Abu Faour’s 2-month-old campaign to combat food corruption, describing it as a “circus show” and “propaganda campaign.”
However, ministerial sources said differences among ministers would not lead to the Cabinet’s resignation or paralysis because this government was needed for political, constitutional and security reasons.
Meanwhile, Parliament failed due to a lack of quorum to elect a president, prompting Berri to postpone the session to Jan. 28. Wednesday’s was the 17th botched attempt since April to choose a successor to former President Michel Sleiman, whose six-year term ended May 25.Lawmakers from MP Michel Aoun’s bloc, Hezbollah’s bloc and its March 8 allies have thwarted a quorum with their consistent boycott of Parliament sessions. They have demanded an agreement beforehand with their March 14 rivals over a consensus candidate for the presidency.
Berri praised the second round of talks between the Future Movement and Hezbollah held at his Ain al-Tineh residence Monday. “The outcome of the second session of this dialogue was more than positive, exceeding bilateral meetings to ensuring a cover for national security and stability,” Berri was quoted as saying by lawmakers during his weekly meeting with MPs.
The parliamentary Future bloc hoped that its dialogue with Hezbollah would facilitate the election of “a consensus president” and reduce sectarian tensions. The bloc, in a statement issued after its weekly meeting, also welcomed dialogue steps taken by other parties, in a clear reference to attempts to arrange a meeting between Aoun and his Christian rival, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea.
The Council of Maronite Bishops decried Parliament’s repeated failure to elect a president and voiced concerns over Lebanon’s future amid the presidential vacuum. “The bishops again call on Parliament to do its constitutional duty to elect a president,” said a statement issued after the council’s monthly meeting chaired by Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai in Bkirki, north of Beirut.