Berri Warns against 'Excluding' Hizbullah from New Cabinet
Speaker Nabih Berri has said that the intention behind the formation of a new non partisan government is to exclude Hizbullah, a process that he rejected by warning that the lawmakers of his parliamentary bloc would not give their vote of confidence to it.
Pan-Arab daily al-Hayat on Thursday quoted Berri as saying that his Amal movement would not “isolate” Hizbullah which has fought and resisted Israel.
He said the alleged exclusion is the result of the widening gap between Iran, Hizbullah's main regional backer, and Saudi Arabia.
But he accused Riyadh of rejecting to hold dialogue with Tehran over the Islamic country's nuclear program.
Berri reiterated that a proposal made by him along with Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid Jumblat to form a government based on the 9-9-6 formula was the best option.
But the March 14 alliance is rejecting to get nine ministers along with the Hizbullah-led March 8 camp. Under the proposal, the remaining six would go to centrists – President Michel Suleiman, Premier-designate Tammam Salam and Jumblat.
Al-Hayat quoted officials, who have visited Berri, as saying that the speaker hasn't confirmed media reports that Hizbullah and his Amal movement would ask Shiite ministers to resign from the new cabinet if it was imposed on them.
“No one from the March 8 alliance said such a thing,” Berri said.
But he warned that if the decrees of the fait accompli government were issued as reported on January 7 or 8, then the ministers would need time to agree on their policy statement.
The line-up would be sent within a month to parliament for discussion. “But it would not receive a vote of confidence because my bloc and that of MP Walid Jumblat will reject it,” he said.
Suleiman will be compelled to hold a new round of binding consultations with parliamentary blocs to name a new premier-designate, Berri's visitors quoted him as saying.
“This way, there will be a month and ten days left for parliament to enter the stage of presidential elections,” he reportedly said.
The Constitution sets March 25 as the date for the legislature to start holding sessions to elect a new president.
“What would such a government do in a month and ten days at the end of a president's term?” Berri asked in reference to the expiry of Suleiman's six-year mandate in May.
The speaker reiterated to his visitors that the de facto cabinet would worsen differences between the rival parties and would complicate the presidential election process by preventing consensus on a new head of state.
“Had their been consensus, it would have been easier for us to guarantee the two-thirds majority during the election,” he said.
Despite his criticism of any attempt by Suleiman and Salam to issue the decrees on a new line-up of so called “neutral” ministers, Berri did not offer any other solution, sticking to the 9-9-6 formula.
“Let them deal with their own problems,” he reportedly told his visitors.
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