BEIRUT: A new Lebanese Cabinet should be at the forefront of a rescue plan to face local and regional challenges, the deputy head of the Shiite Higher Council said Tuesday.
“Lebanon needs a rescue plan which begins with forming a new national salvation government that satisfies the majority of Lebanese so that citizens can live in stability and prosperity,” Sheikh Abdel Amir Kabalan said in a statement, the National News Agency reported.
Lebanon has been under a caretaker government since mid-January, when ministers of the Hezbollah-backed March 8 coalition resigned from Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s Cabinet, forcing its collapse. Tripoli MP Najib Mikati, who was nominated by the March 8 alliance to form the new government, was appointed prime minister-designate on Jan. 25.
Mikati has faced hurdles in his attempts to form the new government, namely a dispute between President Michel Sleiman and Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun, a member of the March 8 coalition, over the Interior Ministry portfolio. Aoun insists that the Interior Ministry be allotted as part of his share in the new Cabinet.
Kabalan stressed on the need to create an environment able to fend off regional and local challenges and urged Lebanese officials to steer clear from “malicious behavior, corruption, oppression and hypocrisy.”
“Lebanese should not exploit their differences because this would only lead to chaos and instability,” Kabalan added.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad said that the March 8 alliance was doing its job in forming the new Cabinet and defended demands made by March 8 figures.
“Someone is obstructing the work of the new majority to form the government, but the majority is doing its job and it has the right to choose whatever suits its ideology,” Raad said after his meeting with former President Emile Lahoud.
Raad also said that demands by Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun were the party’s “constitutional rights.”
“[The issue] is not debatable,” Raad added.