Premier-designate Saad Hariri at a session of Parliament on Saturday. (Credit: Hassan Ibrahim/Parliament)
BEIRUT — Parliament affirmed Saad Hariri’s mandate to form a government on Saturday in a session devoted to the topic, with Hariri, Free Patriotic Movement leader Gebran Bassil and other MPs giving speeches that covered little new ground.
The session, which lasted about an hour and 40 minutes, came in response to an official letter from President Michel Aoun that accused Hariri of being “unable to form a government that meets citizens’ demands” more than six months after the zaim was selected to become prime minister.
After being read at a brief Parliament session on Friday, the letter was discussed on Saturday, with the longest speeches coming from Bassil, who is also the son-in-law of the president, and Hariri, who leads the Future Movement.
The letter had been interpreted by some as a push to nullify Hariri’s nomination, something Bassil explicitly rejected on Saturday. He instead urged the quick formation of a government, and again denied claims that he was obstructing the process by demanding veto power in a new cabinet.
Bassil said that his father-in-law wants a list of names, their sects and political leanings, along with the names of those who had nominated them, before signing off on any cabinet. “There should be a detailed list [of cabinet members] … and the prime minister-designate did not present any such one,” the Batroun MP claimed.
Both the president and premier-designate must agree on any new cabinet — a recurring problem leading to lengthy delays in recent years. Wrangling between Hariri and Aoun has been particularly intense, with the two taking more than eight months to form Hariri’s last government in 2018–19. This time, the two have only been at odds since Hariri’s designation on Oct. 22 — seven months ago — but Lebanon has been without a government since Aug. 10, 2020, when Hassan Diab’s cabinet fell in the aftermath of the devastating Beirut port explosion.
As the country grapples with the fallout from the blast, as well as its worst financial crisis since the 1975–90 Civil War, Hariri and Aoun have come under intense pressure to agree on a new government. Each has blamed the other for their failure.
Following Bassil’s 27-minute speech before Parliament on Saturday, Hariri accused Aoun of trying to absolve himself of responsibility for the failure to form a new government, citing what he claimed was the president’s “long tradition of obstructing cabinet formations.”
In a speech lasting nearly as long as Bassil’s, Hariri said “honestly, I will not form a cabinet the way [Aoun] wants it to be, nor the way any other political party wants it to be.”
The West Beirut MP repeated his intention to form a cabinet of non-partisan “specialists,” which is “a precondition for any external support within the parameters of the French initiative,” he said.
At the close of the session, Parliament adopted a boilerplate position affirming Hariri’s mandate to form a government in accordance with the constitution and in agreement with the president, leaving the country no closer to a solution than before.