Lebanon in seventh week without cabinet

by Natacha Yazbeck



BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon's rival political blocs have been negotiating for nearly seven weeks on the make-up of a new unity government but the situation remains calmer than in previous years, analysts say.

The Saudi- and Western-backed alliance led by Sunni Muslim Saad Hariri won a clear majority in the 128-seat parliament in the June 7 election, defeating the Syrian- and Iranian-backed alliance headed by Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

After his June 27 designation as prime minister, Hariri agreed to form a unity government with his rivals to replace the one that emerged after deadly unrest in May 2008.

Fierce negotiations led to a deal on the number of ministers each political bloc will have in the 30-seat cabinet. Fifteen will go to Hariri's alliance, 10 to the Hezbollah-led opposition and President Michel Sleiman will appoint five ministers.

There is still disagreement over who will get what portfolios, particularly such key jobs as foreign affairs, finance, interior and telecommunications, but the head of the Beirut-based Carnegie Middle East Centre, Paul Salem, said he saw no cause for immediate concern.

"All of Lebanon's complicated coalition governments have taken a fair amount of time to come together -- this is not unusual," he said.

He said a thaw in Syria's relations with Saudi Arabia and the West had helped the rival camps to step back from the dangerous animosities that saw Hezbollah fighters occupy parts of Sunni west Beirut last year.

"A few years ago the two alliances were at each others' throats and their foreign backers were at war. Today the situation is relatively calmer," Salem said.

Hezbollah spokesman Ibrahim Moussawi told AFP he saw "no major obstacles" to the talks.

Ammar Houry, an MP in Hariri's bloc, agreed.

"There is no doubt Syrian-Saudi rapprochement has had a positive effect on the cabinet formation," Houry said. "But there are also internal details that must be dealt with."

Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun -- a key Hezbollah ally who holds 27 of the alliance's 57 seats -- has made a number of demands that the majority bloc is unwilling to accede to.

"Categorically, General Aoun is obstructing the cabinet formation," Houry told AFP.

"He wants his son-in-law (former telecommunications minister Gibran Bassil) to be given a ministry again, first and foremost. Secondly, he wants key portfolios."

Bassil failed to win a parliamentary seat in June and the majority insists that it will only agree to ministers who have proven they have the confidence of the electors.

Aoun has hit back, telling a local television channel on Thursday that it was the majority that was delaying the formation of the cabinet because it had to regularly "consult with its foreign backers".

Added to that, the majority bloc, dubbed March 14, has its own internal problems.

Earlier this month, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a loyal member of the Hariri camp for the past four years, announced that he "could no longer continue" because its alliance with right-wing Christian factions conflicted with the leftist principles of his Progressive Socialist Party.

He later backtracked, announcing he would "fully support" Hariri in forming the new government. Jumblatt's jockeying will be crucial to the balance of power as he has 11 of the alliance's 71 parliament seats and his departure from the ruling coalition would have stripped it of a clear majority.

But Salem said the Druze leader's political acrobatics undermined Hariri's confidence in the loyalty of Jumblatt's deputies.

"The most likely power-sharing outcome appears to be 12 ministers for March 14, three ministers for Jumblatt, five ministers for the president and 10 for the opposition," Salem wrote in The National Interest, a Nixon Centre publication.

"This would be a government with no clear majority and in which virtually all decisions would have to be made by consensus or reaching across coalition lines."