BEIRUT: Disagreement over the government’s decision-making mechanism must be an incentive for electing a president, Hezbollah’s deputy head said Thursday, highlighting that the Cabinet’s work should not be disrupted.
“We call for refraining from disrupting the government’s work and we even call for energizing Parliament’s role,” Sheikh Naim Qassem said during a memorial ceremony in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
“We accept that disagreement over the government’s decision-making system be resolved in a manner which reassures [various] parties,” Qassem added. “Let the mechanism crisis be a direct cause for additional serious work to elect a president.”
But the Hezbollah official said that disrupting Cabinet and Parliament under the pretext of a presidential election was a mistake.
“The presidency has been vacant for nine months now. Circumstances have not changed since then, so it’s better to elect a president immediately,” Qassem said.
Hezbollah backs Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun for the presidency, arguing that he was the strongest representative of Christians. The party has repetitively called on March 14 rivals to elect the former Lebanese Army commander for the country’s top post.
The government has not met for two weeks after Prime Minister Tammam Salam said that no new sessions would be held before ministers agree on a new decision-making system to replace the current one, which requires unanimous support by the 24 ministers for every single decision. The current system has significantly reduced the government’s productivity.
In the face of Salam’s insistence on amending the decision-making system, seven Christian ministers and a Muslim minister, who met at former President Michel Sleiman’s residence last week oppose the change, saying the Cabinet should serve in a caretaker capacity under the current mechanism until a new president is elected. The eight ministers, who dubbed their meeting a “consultative gathering,” are those loyal to the Kataeb Party, Sleiman and independent March 14 Christian ministers.
Telecommunications Minister Boutros Harb, one of those seven Christian ministers, discussed with Speaker Nabih Berri Thursday means to resume the government’s work, “but at the same time not to encourage those who are disrupting the presidential election to carry on with their plan.”
“Based on these principles, there is a possibility to find mechanisms or to provide a suitable atmosphere for practicing specific mechanisms that can pull us out of this deadlock,” Harb told reporters after visiting Berri at the latter’s Ain al-Tineh residence.
The minister said it was not acceptable that some ministers continued to take advantage of the government’s attempt to achieve unanimous support for its decisions in order to veto every decision they did not like.
Harb said he briefed Berri on the meeting of the “consultative gathering.” “[The gathering] aims at preserving the state and its institutions particularly as the presidential vacuum has dragged on,” Harb said. “At the same time, it [the gathering] aims at providing a suitable atmosphere for practicing the [decision-making] mechanism agreed upon earlier in a manner that does not violate the Constitution and thus does not disrupt Cabinet’s work.”
Future Movement MP Ahmad Fatfat said he supported what the Constitution stipulated regarding the decision-making system.
“This is the best way and it serves the interests of all factions,” Fatfat told a local media station. “If there are parties that are not pleased with this, then we should take their opinions into consideration.”
The Constitution states that in case the government could not achieve unanimous support for its decisions, then regular decisions need a simple majority vote to pass, and major ones, specified in Article 65, a vote by two-thirds of Cabinet members.
Echoing Fatfat, MP Yassin Jaber, from Berri’s bloc, called on Salam to adhere to the Constitution regarding Cabinet decisions.
“This is because the country cannot be left without a decision-making authority with all the challenges it is facing,” he told a local radio station.
Separately, Defense Minister Samir Moqbel said that a report on extending the terms of the heads of security services had been on the government’s table since last December.
“I discussed this issue with heads of security services for two months and the final report was sent to the Cabinet on Dec. 17, 2014,” he said.
“It will be discussed once it is on the Cabinet’s agenda for a final decision and then referred to Parliament for endorsement,” Moqbel added.
Aoun strongly opposes extending the terms of top security officials, arguing it violates the Constitution.
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