BEIRUT // The prime minister-designate Saad Hariri yesterday moved to end the three-month impasse over the formation of a national unity government, bypassing opposition demands for more influence and appealing directly to President Michel Suleiman to accept his proposal. The move was immediately rejected by the opposition alliance, including Hizbollah, which said it would not allow its ministers to participate in the cabinet unless demands made by a key Christian opposition party were met.
Mr Hariri proposed a 30-person cabinet composed of 15 members of his majority alliance, 10 members of the Hizbollah-led opposition he defeated in June's elections, and five supporters of the president, who is considered a neutral figure. The opposition had accepted that formula before consensus collapsed as Hizbollah's primary Christian ally, Michel Aoun, demanded his choice of ministries, including control of the critical and lucrative telecommunications ministry for his son-in-law.
As Mr Hariri's proposal does not offer Mr Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement that ministry among the five portfolios allocated to the party, the entire opposition is expected to reject participating in the cabinet, should Mr Suleiman accept the proposal, which was passed to him by Mr Hariri in a personal meeting at the presidential palace yesterday. "[President] Suleiman informed me he would study the line-up that I presented to him to see whether he would sign the [cabinet] formation decree," Mr Hariri told reporters as he left the meeting.
Over the weekend, an official with Hizbollah told the local media that they would reject any proposal that did not satisfy Mr Aoun. "The Shiite team [Hizbollah and Amal] didn't, and won't, hand over the premier-designate the list of suggested ministers as long as the PM-designate is not complying with Aoun's demands," a Hizbollah official told al Liwaa newspaper on Sunday. In an interview with the opposition-friendly newspaper, al Safir, Jebran Bassil, Mr Aoun's son-in-law and choice to remain as telecommunications minister, slammed Mr Hariri after the two met on Sunday in an effort to quell their increasingly bitter and personal feud over Mr Hairi's refusal to give Mr Bassil a seat on the cabinet after he lost his seat in parliament in June.
Mr Hariri "is practising pressure in an attempt to impose terms of surrender and succumb to sectarian violence", Mr Bassil said. "This means that he wants to form a government by means of pressure and blackmail all the way to threats of civil war." Although Mr Hariri has not threatened that violence would result from a continued stalemate, friends and enemies alike have repeatedly criticised him for showing inflexibility in Lebanon's notoriously difficult political arena, where enemies are regularly expected to find common ground to avoid major conflict.
But a close political ally of Mr Hariri's says that the incoming prime minister recognises that he cannot govern effectively without broad support from the opposition and thus does not expect that this direct move will result in a cabinet. "The prime minister-designate will be very careful about the formation, and he will not work with a formation that is not accepted and approved by the president," said Moustafa Alloush, a member of Mr Hariri's Future Movement. "At the end, if the Jebran Bassil team keeps on being stubborn then the country will remain without a government."
According to local media reports, the cabinet proposed yesterday would turn control of the telecommunications ministry over to the Progressive Socialist Party of Walid Jumblatt, a nominal Hariri ally, while a right-wing Christian party, the Lebanese Forces, would take control of the energy ministry, another portfolio coveted by Mr Aoun and his supporters. The alliance known as March 14, led by Mr Hariri with huge financial backing from Saudi Arabia, won the June 7 parliamentary elections over a coalition of Hizbollah, the Free Patriotic Movement and Nabih Berri's Amal Movement. But while efforts to appease the Shiite opposition were mostly successful, Mr Aoun has been steadfast in both his demands that Mr Bassil return to the telecoms ministry and that his party be granted five seats on the cabinet.
The infighting has frustrated even Mr Hariri's supporters, some of whom argued that if this latest move fails, that he should step aside. "Saad Hariri needs to take a move about the formation, and if he is unable, then it's about time for him to give this responsibility to someone else," said Sharif al Shams al Din, a cook, as he prepared hummus in a West Beirut restaurant. "Honestly, I feel that he is not ready yet to take this responsibility," Mr Shams al Din continued. "He is too nice for the job. It seems as if he is lost between what Saudi Arabia wants him to do, and the local Lebanese politicians from March 14 demanding positions. The country and we the people of Lebanon cannot wait anymore."
mprothero@thenational.ae