Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri has said that it was not possible to govern the country amid differences between its different factions.
Lebanon can only be governed through “understanding and cooperation,” said Hariri on Friday.
"We have full confidence in our institutions and the state, but what is happening with the obstacles facing government formation,” it has become clear who is blocking it, Hariri said during a meeting with officials from his Mustaqbal Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party in Iqlim al-Kharroub.
“We have no choice but to work together to preserve each other,” said Hariri, who has been trying for months to form a national unity cabinet.
“My political intentions are clear,” he said, hinting that his rivals had ulterior motives in obstructing the government lineup.
Hariri reiterated that the Lebanese Constitution on the formation of the cabinet is clear.
“It states that the PM-designate forms his government in consultation with the President,” said Hariri.
Yet many sides have no interest in implementing the Taef Accord, he told his visitors.
Unfortunately, last week’s defamation campaign only “hurt Lebanon,” he added.
Druze politician Wiam Wahhab has been at the heart of rising political tension over the last week with a series of verbal attacks on Hariri.
Hariri supporters lodged a legal complaint against Wahhab.
The tension has cast another shadow over efforts to form a new national unity government more than six months since an election, with rival parties still unable to agree on how to share out portfolios in the new cabinet.
The internal security forces said they went to Wahhab's village of al-Jahiliya to take him for questioning after the public prosecutor accepted the legal complaint against him and referred the matter to the police.
In a statement, police said one of Wahhab's aides – Mohamed Abu Diyab - was shot in "random" gunfire by Wahhab supporters and denied the police had opened fire.
