The Lebanese parliament is set to convene on Friday to read out a message by President Michel Aoun accusing Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri of failing to form a new government.
The letter seems aimed at indirectly requesting lawmakers to withdraw their confidence from Hariri under Aoun’s usual slogan of reclaiming the rights of Christians in Lebanon. The president’s move will only deepen the crisis in the country rather than ease tensions.
Ultimately, Aoun will emerge the loser in his long-running tussle with Hariri. He will fail in coming up with a new constitutional problem by targeting the Sunni sect. The prime minister in Lebanon is always a Sunni figure.
Aoun’s ally Hezbollah will not join him in targeting the sect as the party would prefer to meet the president halfway in advocating his right to deliver his message, but also aborting its political message because it is no way willing to become embroiled in a political dispute with the Sunnis.
It is in this second point where its position overlaps with that of parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who will as usual be able to moderate the parliamentary session and prevent it from turning into an arena for political spats.
In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, he said that Lebanon’s salvation from its current dire crisis lies in the swift formation of a new government.
The salvation does not lie in Friday’s parliamentary session, he said, stressing instead on the need to save the country from further collapse.
“More catastrophes are in store if we do not set aside our differences and prioritize the formation of a new government,” he urged.
He called for returning to government consultations with more openness and flexibility.
Berri revealed that the parliamentary session will be restricted to reading out Aoun’s letter. Hariri’s retort and the lawmaker’s discussions will ensue in another session.
Berri underlined the need to ease tensions in order to resume contacts to save Lebanon in line with the French initiative.
The speaker’s position effectively tosses the ball in Aoun’s court.
A parliamentary source told Asharq Al-Awsat that the president would not have been forced to address a letter to the legislature had his political team taken the initiative to deter him from making such a move.
The source explained that the justifications for sending the letter violate constitutional texts on forming a government, rendering his whole letter void.
Rather, Aoun’s political team has led him towards an error that could have been avoided had he read these texts, it added.
It clarified that Aoun is basing his actions on the pre-Taif Accord constitution. That constitution allows the president to appoint a prime minister, but it is no longer adopted in Lebanon.
Aoun has found himself in a predicament and is therefore, using his letter to throw the ball in parliament’s court to get himself out of the problem he created, said the source.
It stressed that Aoun has the right to address a letter to parliament, but he is not entitled to give himself the right to boss around the prime minister-designate and impose unconstitutional restrictions on his work to further his own political goals.
The source remarked that Aoun’s political team has embroiled him in an “uncalculated adventure” and it should have rather played a role of advisor instead of encouraging him on forcing Hariri to quit.
Aoun has already lost the battle against Hariri even before divulging his letter to parliament, it stressed.
Moreover, it said that Aoun chose the time to address parliament to coincide with the letter he sent to French President Emmanuel Macron.
He had hoped in that letter to escape blame that he and his son-in-law Gebran Bassil were behind the obstruction of the government formation.
Local and foreign parties view Bassil as holding sway over Aoun and is therefore preventing him from approving a new government that does not meet his conditions.
Aoun hoped that his message to Macron would exempt his political team from sanctions that Paris has drafted with the European Union against Lebanese parties that are blamed for obstructing the government formation.
