Rana Moussaoui
Agence France Presse
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s new unity government will be united in name only because of unresolved deep divisions between the rival parties, especially on the issue of Hizbullah’s arsenal of weapons, analysts say. “The formation of this so-called unity government is but a formality,” Osama Safa, head of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, told AFP.
“There is but one force on the ground, regardless of who won the elections,” he added, referring to Hizbullah, the only Lebanese faction which has refused to disarm since the end of the country’s 1975-90 Civil War.
Safa and other analysts noted that the militant group, which fought a devastating war with Israel in 2006 and is considered a terrorist organization by Washington, will essentially dictate the workings of the new cabinet.
“Nothing will happen unless Hizbullah agrees to it,” Safa said. “They managed to get what they want, nothing can happen without them.”
“They impose their will through their weapons,” he added.
The new government was formed late on Monday by Prime Minister Saad Hariri following more than four months of tough negotiations with the Hizbullah-led opposition on the distribution of portfolios and the choice of ministers.
Hariri, a Sunni whose community traditionally fills the premier’s seat, was asked to form a government after his coalition defeated the Shiite Hizbullah and its allies in a June general election.
His 30-member Cabinet is composed of 15 seats for his US- and Saudi-backed coalition, 10 for Hizbullah’s camp backed by Syria and Iran, and five for President Michel Sleiman’s appointees.
“In any unity government in the world, the different parties at least agree on a program,” Rafik Khoury, chief editor of the independent daily Al-Anwar, told AFP.
“Here in Lebanon, they have been battling it out for five months over portfolios and they agree on nothing.”
Khoury predicted that the long-running political feud between Hariri’s bloc and his rivals would continue, despite all the hoopla over the birth of a unity government.
“Let’s not kid each other, this government was formed by Bashar Assad and King Abdullah,” he said, referring to the Syrian and Saudi heads of state.
“The rival ministers will be at each other’s throats at each cabinet session,” Khoury added.
Lebanese media on Tuesday also warned of the pitfalls facing the new government as it gets down to business.
“Government of the two trenches,” read the front-page headline in the daily Al-Akhbar, which is close to the opposition.
As-Safir daily, also close to the opposition, said Hariri’s government mirrors all of the country’s complexities and woes.
“It is a government of contradictions, which either contains a time-bomb waiting to explode or will be able to rule until the end of its mandate,” it said in an editorial.
The major point of contention between the two camps has been Hizbullah’s weapons, an issue starkly highlighted in May 2008 when the militant group staged a spectacular takeover of mainly Muslim west Beirut.
The crisis, sparked by a government crackdown against Hizbullah, resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people and took the country close to another civil war.
Analysts warned that a repeat of those events was possible unless the new government addresses the fundamental divisions among the rival parties.
“The new Cabinet will succeed in nothing unless it works to consolidate national consensus,” said Fadia Kiwan, head of the political science department at Saint Joseph University.
“We are already sitting on a powderkeg given the bad regional situation,” she added, referring to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the bloodshed in Iraq.
“We are facing political instability and insecurity because Lebanon, whether we like it or not, is a regional battleground.”
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