Lebanon’s speaker of parliament Nabih Berri warned on Wednesday that “procrastination in forming the government has a negative effect on the situation in Lebanon.”
Earlier, during his weekly meeting with lawmakers, Berri said there had been no breakthroughs in the formation of a government, MPs told local media.
Berri's weekly meeting with MPs at his Ain al-Tineh residence came a day after he had an ice-breaking meeting with Free Patriotic Movement leader Gebran Bassil. The meeting failed to make any progress in the formation process, yet it marked a warming of relations that had been critically strained since parliament elections on May 6.
Saad al-Hariri was designated to continue in his role as prime minister and form a government on May 24 after the country’s elections.
However, progress in bringing together Lebanon’s rival parties to agree on the government formation, including the distribution of cabinet positions, has been slow.
Hariri has said it is vital to form the new government to put Lebanon’s fragile economy back onto a sounder footing.
On Tuesday, a senior World Bank official said Lebanon’s economic situation was unsustainable and the state needed to enact reforms.
Hariri said last week he was more optimistic than before that a new government would be formed.
