Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Tuesday blasted Hezbollah, caretaker PM Najib Mikati and other parties over the caretaker cabinet session that was held on Monday, threatening to seek "broad administrative decentralization" should the other forces continue with the same course.

The Finance and Budget parliamentary committee, headed by MP Ibrahim Kanaan, convened Tuesday to discuss circulars and decisions issued by Finance Minister Youssef Khalil.

After listening to the minister, the committee decided to delay the implementation of two salary taxes resolutions.

Tashnag Secretary-General Hagop Pakradounian slammed Tuesday caretaker Industry Minister George Boujikian for defying the Tashnag Party.

Boujikian had attended Monday a caretaker cabinet session, despite a declared Free Patriotic Movement boycott and a decision by the Tashnag party not to attend.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun over a tweet alleging that Swiss banks had frozen accounts belonging to Jumblat and other Lebanese political figures.

Lebanese Forces bloc MP Ghassan Hasbani stressed Tuesday that “amid the presidential vacuum, parliament can only convene to elect a president.”

MP Salim Aoun of the Free Patriotic Movement on Monday blasted caretaker PM Najib Mikati for holding a meeting for the caretaker cabinet despite the FPM’s boycott and rejection, noting that Mikati “should have formed a cabinet” in the five months that followed his appointment as PM-designate.

Two Hezbollah ministers on Monday defended their participation in a caretaker cabinet session boycotted by the ministers of the Free Patriotic Movement and ex-president Michel Aoun.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday strongly defended a cabinet meeting boycotted by the Free Patriotic Movement and suggested that the FPM does not care about the “death” of cancer and dialysis patients.

The caretaker cabinet convened Monday morning at the Grand Serail after two ministers defied a declared Free Patriotic Movement boycott and secured quorum for a session described by caretaker PM Najib Mikati as an emergency meeting.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s press office on Sunday denied “what some Aounist media is circulating about a phone call that took place between Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and caretaker PM Najib Mikati following the patriarch’s Sunday Mass sermon.”