With Christmas already passed and political parties now taking a break from negotiations to digest the latest developments, it looks like the formation of a new Lebanese government is not going to be a New Year gift either. Photo DR
How come that, in just a few hours, the hopes of forming a new government last week end were dashed? So far, no details have been officially disclosed about what happened between the evening of Friday, Dec. 21 and the end of the following day. But according to people close to the talks, a hidden factor derailed the process, prompting president Michel Aoun to sadly say: “It is clear that some people want to impose new rules on the formation of the government.”
The president did not specify what the new rules were or who wanted to impose them, but his words were a clear expression of disappointment at a time when he had hopes that a new government would be a Christmas gift for the Lebanese people.
With Christmas already passed and political parties now taking a break from negotiations to digest the latest developments, it looks like the formation of a new government is not going to be a New Year gift either.
But if we are to move forward, it is important to understand what went wrong. In fact, it was a vague sentence that caused much of the misunderstanding and confusion. The sentence was one of the clauses of what has been called the “presidential initiative” that director of General Security Abbas Ibrahim was entrusted to carry out, and which provided a solution to the demand that the six anti-Hariri Sunni MPs, known as the Consultative Gathering, be represented in the government. According to the initiative, a new minister “will be close to the six parliamentarians of the ‘Consultative Gathering’ and will be their representative in the government, while at the same time he should be counting as part of the president’s quota.”
According to several sources, Jawad Adra’s name came up during a meeting on the sidelines of the Lebanese-British Economic Forum in London between Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil. General Security Director Abbas Ibrahim was then given the task of persuading the six MPs of the Consultative Gathering to accept him as their representative in the new government.
Initially, the Consultative Gathering agreed. But the group was later angered by the manner in which Adra’s name was put forward and the subsequent announcement that he would be part of the Strong Lebanon Bloc headed by Gebran Bassil in parliament. This is the hidden factor that derailed the effort to provide representation for the anti-Hariri sunni MPs in the new government.
Kassem Hachem, a member of Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berry’s political bloc, was tasked with communicating the name of the proposed minister to the Consultative Gathering, by opening a carefully sealed envelope containing Adra’s name. This procedure angered the members of the Consultative Gathering because they had not proposed Adra’s name. When this detail leaked to the media, the six MPs felt humiliated. They responded by summoning Adra to a meeting in order to ask him to exclusively represent the Consultative Gathering in the new government and not to join the Strong Lebanon Bloc.
Asking Adra to pledge to exclusively represent the Consultative Gathering was supposed to strengthen the group’s position after being forced to accept a representative it did not choose. But things took a wrong turn. Adra refused to join the Consultative Gathering and Bassil insisted that Adra be a part of the Strong Lebanon Bloc.
That is how the presidential initiative to solve the so called Sunni problem was sabotaged and General Ibrahim’s mediation came to an end. Some members of the Consultative Gathering blame Bassil for the failure, because of his demand demand that Adra joins Strong Lebanon, which would have given his group a blocking third. Bassil commented subsequently in a Tweet: “They wanted us to lie but we are not used to lying.” He was referring to the possibility of Adra representing the Consultative Gathering while also being in another bloc.
Others believe that Kassem Hachem’s way of announcing Adra’s name is what sabotaged the effort to form the government by imposing a fait accompli on the members of the Consultative Gathering and leaving them no choice but to demand a meeting with Adra.
Others again saw behind Hachem’s move the hand of Nabih Berry, even though the speaker of Parliament did not play a part in choosing Adra, and his role was confined to conveying his name to the six sunni parliamentarians. Others again pointed to a role of Hezbollah, which felt flawed by Hariri and Bassil’s selection of Adra.
Regardless of the real explanation, the Sunni hurdle remains unresolved. Members of the Consultative Gathering withdrew Adra’s name and asked the president to choose a new representative from a list of candidates they put forward.
Beyond the name issue, the latest failure reflects a fundamental disagreement about what the balance of power should be in the new government. Hariri wants it to be more or less than same as in the previous government, while Hezbollah wants it to reflect the results of the parliamentary elections, and Bassil wants enough weight to influence key decisions. In the meantime, the president is letting the dust settle and plans to resume his initiative to form a government after the New Year.