Christian party comes up with idea to resolve cabinet dispute
The proposal involves handing major ministries to smaller sectarian groups in a country where power is shared between Muslims and Christians
A party founded by Lebanon’s Christian president made a proposal to end a dispute that has blocked the formation of a new cabinet and threatened a French drive to lit the country out of its worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.
The proposal, put forward on Saturday, involved handing major ministries to smaller sectarian groups in a country where power is shared between Muslims and Christians.
There was no immediate comment from Shi’ite groups, which have insisted they choose who fills several posts. But a political source familiar with the thinking of dominant Shi’ite groups said the idea was unlikely to work.
Lebanon’s efforts to switly form a new government have run into the sand over how to pick ministers in a country where political loyalties mostly follow sectarian religious lines.
A Sept.15 deadline agreed with France to name a cabinet has passed. Paris, which is leading an international push to haul Lebanon back from economic collapse, has voiced exasperation and told Beirut to act “without delay.”
The leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the party founded by President Michel Aoun and allied to Hizbollah, proposed “undertaking an experiment to distribute the so-called sovereign ministries to smaller sects, specifically to the Druze, Alawites, Armenians and Christian minorities.”
The statement was issued ater Gebran Bassil, FPM head and son-in-law of the president, chaired a meeting of the party’s political leadership. Bassil is a Maronite, Lebanon’s largest Christian community.
Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib, a Sunni under Lebanon’s sectarian system of power sharing, wants to shake up the leadership of ministries, some of which have been controlled by the same factions for years.
Lebanon’s main Shi’ite groups — the Amal Movement and the heavily armed, Iranian-backed Hizbollah — want to select the figures to fill a number of positions, including the finance minister, a top position oten called a “sovereign” ministry.
An FPM official said the party had not discussed the idea about distributing ministries with Hizbollah or Amal. “We are proposing an exit strategy for those who are stuck up a tree without a ladder,” the official told reporters.
With the nation buried under a mountain of debt and with its banks paralysed, the finance minister will play a crucial role as Lebanon seeks to restart stalled talks with the International Monetary Fund, one of the first steps on France’s roadmap.
On Friday, the United States accused Hizbollah of stockpiling ammonium nitrate in several European countries, suggesting a possible link between the Lebanese Shiite movement and the recent massive explosion in Beirut.
“Since 2012, Hizbollah has established caches of ammonium nitrate throughout Europe by transporting first aid kits whose cold packs contain the substance,” US counterterrorism coordinator Nathan Sales said.
“Those sorts of caches have been found in a number of countries, including the UK, Greece, France, Italy, and a number of others,” he said in a conference.
“I can also reveal that significant ammonium nitrate caches have been discovered or destroyed in France, Greece, and Italy... And as we all saw in the Port of Beirut explosion, ammonium nitrate is a truly dangerous substance.”
The Aug.4 blast in Beirut killed more than 190 people, wounded thousands and ripped through large parts of the Lebanese capital.
The Heibollah movement exerts influence over the port, multiple sources have confirmed.
The blast was caused by the explosion of tonnes of ammonium nitrate — a chemical compound commonly used as a fertiliser. It was stored for years in a port warehouse.
France’s foreign ministry on Friday said there was no evidence to suggest the armed wing of Lebanon’s Hizbollah was storing chemicals to make explosives in France.
“To our knowledge, there is nothing tangible to confirm such an allegation in France today,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll told reporters in response to Sales’ allegations.
Unlike the United States, which has designated Hizbollah movement as a terrorist group since 1997, France has said its elected arm has a legitimate political role.