BEIRUT: Prime Minister Najib Mikati and President Michel Sleiman accepted Wednesday evening the resignation of Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas, a step that is expected to lead to the resumption of Cabinet sessions.

However, for a resolution to the three-week old Cabinet crisis, Parliament must pass a draft law by Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc, which sources from the bloc fear might not pass. The legislation would allow the government to set a transportation allowance.

Nahhas, from Aoun’s bloc, submitted his resignation to Aoun Tuesday after refusing to sign a transportation allowance decree issued by the Cabinet, arguing that a draft law stipulating the allowance must be sent to Parliament.

Nahhas opted to resign after Aoun reached an agreement with Speaker Nabih Berri stipulating that the minister would sign the decree before it went to Parliament.

Aoun sent Nahhas’s resignation to Mikati through Energy Minister Gibran Bassil, his son-in-law, who visited the premier at his residence in Verdun.

“The resignation was accepted after consultations between the prime minister and President Michel Sleiman,” a statement from Mikati’s office said.

Mikati, who suspended Cabinet sessions on Feb.1 over disputes with ministers from Aoun’s bloc on civil service appointments, had hinted that he would resume Cabinet sessions if Nahhas signed the decree.

Earlier Wednesday, before Nahhas’s resignation had been accepted, Berri adjourned a Parliament session, to give more time for a compromise to be reached.

The session’s agenda included two draft laws allowing the government to set the transportation allowance, one draft law forwarded by Metn MP Ibrahim Kanaan, on behalf of the Change and Reform bloc and the other by Future Movement MP Nabil de Freij. The session is to reconvene Thursday.

Following the session, Berri held talks with Bassil.

Prior to the session, Berri held closed-door talks with Mikati. The two were separately joined by Kanaan and former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

Political sources told The Daily Star that all blocs would vote in favor of Kanaan’s law Thursday, adding that Aoun would either choose Walid Azar, a lawyer, or Judge Arlette Jreissati to replace Nahhas. The sources said that once it resumes its sessions, the Cabinet would intensify efforts to make pending civil service appointments.

But sources close to the Change and Reform bloc said that despite assurances from Mikati and Berri that Kanaan’s draft law would pass in Thursday’s session, they were worried about potential “surprises,” like postponement of the discussion of the draft law or a lack of quorum. The sources expressed their hope that such developments would not happen as these could affect the bloc’s ties with the Cabinet and jeopardize its existence.

The sources said that Siniora, the head of the opposition Future Movement bloc, is likely to trade support for the draft law for an agreement by the Change and Reform bloc to drop demands to see records accounting for the $11 billion that Siniora’s Cabinet spent above the budget ceiling in 2005.

The opposition would also give its support to a controversial draft law to legalize the extra-budget spending of LL 8.9 trillion if the bloc drops the $11 billion issue.

The sources said that Minister of State Nicholas Fattoush, who will become the acting-labor minister, would sign the decree if the transportation allowance draft law passes Thursday.

According to the sources, passing the draft law during the session depends on the efforts of Berri and Mikati along with contacts with Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt, whose bloc’s votes would be needed if the opposition votes against the draft law.

In an expression of solidarity Wednesday evening, dozens of people gathered near Nahhas’s house in Beirut. Addressing the crowds, the ex-minister accused Mikati of “violating the Constitution” by issuing the transportation allowance decree.

“If they think that stealing the rights of people for 16 years will become a law, this will never take place, not in 16 years, or in 60 years,” Nahhas said, urging demonstrators to gather Thursday near Parliament to convey their demands.

Before it was adjourned, the Parliament session lasted for more than three hours and was conducted in relative calm.

At the beginning of the session, however, opposition March 14 MPs lashed out at the Cabinet, saying it failed to address the socio-economic situation in the country and blasting the government’s policy of dissociating itself from Arab League decisions against Syria.

Hezbollah MP Nawaf Mussawi responded, defending the government’s disassociation policy which he said preserves stability in the country.

The legislature passed four laws including one to raise the salaries of Lebanese University working and retired professors, despite objections by Finance Minister Mohammad Safadi, who said that the ministry and the Council of Civil Service were preparing a draft law to address the professors’ demands. Berri and other MPs called for passing the draft law, arguing that it reflected an agreement between the Cabinet and LU professors.