Political tension caused by the failure to form a new government, in addition to the latest verbal attacks launched by Hezbollah and figures from the March 8 alliance against Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, caused tension in Beirut, where supporters for the PM’s al-Mustaqbal Movement blocked several streets, including the Airport road.
Several parties on Tuesday condemned a campaign launched against the PM-designate and his slain father former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, as the Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc met and said the defamation came in the framework of campaigns that the Lebanese have lived through since the mid-nineties.
“The slanderers who are at the forefront of the attack against the martyr prime minister, and carry out the suspicious campaigns against Prime minister Saad Hariri, are the product of those minds whose only function is to sabotage national stability, and disrupt any possibility to break the deadlock of the formation of the government,” the bloc said in a statement following a meeting chaired by MP Bahia Hariri at the Center House.
Leader of the Progressive Socialist Party Walid Jumblat condemned the defamation campaign against Hariri. He also accused Hezbollah, without naming the party, of obstructing the formation of a new cabinet.
"Our partner at home and his allies are like robots that have no feelings or regrets, unfortunately, even if matters go as far as economic deterioration,” he wrote on Twitter.
Meanwhile, Caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil made on Tuesday three proposals for a solution to the government formation crisis during a meeting with Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut.
Sources close to the cabinet talks told Asharq Al-Awsat that Berri asked for time to discuss the initiative with concerned parties.
After meeting with the Speaker Tuesday, Bassil said: "For the first time, I am moving to practical ideas and solutions which are numerous.”
He added that any solution to the cabinet crisis must be fair. “It is impossible to form a government by imposing or refusing (possible solutions), but rather through consensus. This is what we call a national unity government," the minister said.
Bassil underlined the paramount importance of just representation in government and he ruled out foreign meddling to deter the cabinet formation.
