Lebanese President Michel Aoun hinted on Thursday he might refer the cabinet formation conflict to the country’s legislative body by sending a letter to the Parliament, demanding that it deal with the designation of Saad Hariri as Prime Minister and to place a deadline for the unlimited government formation procedure.
Although political forces admit the President’s constitutional right to address Parliament, constitutional experts insist that the legislative body is not authorized to drop the designation of Hariri. “No one is currently willing to take the country into a constitutional conflict,” the experts say.
And while Lebanese await the content of Aoun’s letter, experts place the President’s move in the framework of “political pressures exerted on Hariri to speed up the formation process.”
Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli said it was part of the President’s constitutional rights to send a letter to Speaker Nabih Berri in this regard. “Berri should propose this letter for discussion at a session he calls for,” Frezli said.
However, a leading official from the Mustaqbal Movement saw that this letter as a waste of time.
“It won’t affect the designation of Hariri as prime minister,” the official told Asharq Al-Awsat, adding that “the shortest way to treat the crisis is for Aoun to address a letter to his son-in-law Jebran Bassil and to advise him to offer concessions on the issue of the Cabinet and to stop obstructing the formation process.”
“No one has the authority to withdraw the designation of Hariri as prime minister,” constitutional expert and former deputy Salah Hnein told Asharq Al-Awsat on Thursday.
He called on some officials to stop introducing new jurisprudence to the Lebanese Constitution.
“The failure of forming the cabinet also means the failure of the presidential era. No Lebanese wishes to see that,” Hnein said.
