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Beirut – Omar Habanjar and Zeina Tabbara
The Lebanese government formation process proceeds with rapid and steady dictation. The third meeting between President Michel Aoun and President-designate Saad Hariri has achieved basic steps in terms of size and turnover, and the bet is that the next meeting, which was scheduled for today, will lead to additional, positive and advanced steps in training terms. The government, then, informed that it will be postponed until tomorrow Friday, since today is an official holiday that marks the birth of the Prophet, and pointed out that an evening meeting took place yesterday between the two presidents who were away from the media.
Meanwhile, the President of Parliament, Nabih Berri, interviewed a delegation of students from the University of Saint Joseph, in which he revealed that “the next government can see the light in 4-5 days if the positive atmosphere remains as it is. now”. President Berri reiterated that the negotiations that Lebanon is conducting in Naqoura are aimed exclusively at establishing Lebanon’s rights to invest in all its wealth without an increase or decrease, saying: It is not possible, neither soon nor from afar, that the demarcation negotiations leading to normalization with The Israeli enemy, with whom it is negotiated according to clear mechanisms, are the components of the April Understanding, indirectly under the banner of the United Nations ”.
The latest data indicates that the government can announce next Monday, unless there are news or external obstacles that affect the Lebanese interior.
At the third meeting, Prime Minister Hariri agreed with President Aoun that the government would be made up of 20 ministers and, despite official secrecy, he learned that Hariri presented the President of the Republic with a draft government in which he approved the rotation of sovereign portfolios, with the exception of the remaining money bag with the Shiite duo, and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would be for the year and the Interior. For the Maronites, defend yourself with the Orthodox Prosecutor’s Office.
The session includes the Ministry of Energy, which can be handed over to an Armenian minister with an understanding with the President of the Republic, in exchange for Hezbollah cede the Ministry of Health and take in its place the Ministry of Education or Communications, and the Ministry of Works can withdraw from the “Marada” despite his insistence on giving it to a Druze minister, with whom Walid Jumblatt is satisfied. While there is another Druze minister of the air of MP Talal Arslan, and Walid Jumblatt accepts it.
The OTV channel, which speaks for the Free Patriotic Movement, indicated that the Ministry of Energy is still subject to discussion, and cited sources that it considered well-informed, that if the other ministerial portfolios are rotated, there is no energy problem either. He said Hezbollah is sticking to the Health Ministry portfolio and attempts to assign it to the Progressive Socialist Party have yet to be successful.
Follow-up sources assure Al-Anbaa that Prime Minister Saad Hariri informed the Shiite duo that an American letter had reached him, in which he categorically refused to maintain the Ministry of Health with Hezbollah, as it is one of the important ministries that receive aid and sums of money in foreign currency from international organizations, specifically the World Health Organization, to combat Coronavirus, and that reports have reached Americans that the party is benefiting, through a wide network of investors and Affiliate merchants of these funds in various ways.
And the communication sites indicate that the president-designate is going to put the name of Dr. Firas Al-Abyad, director of the Hariri Government University Hospital in Beirut, is the Minister of Health, due to his extensive experience in confronting the Corona virus. .
Sources believe that Hezbollah’s accession to the Ministry of Health is linked to the exclusivity of the Ministry of Finance for the two parties. And when this is approved in the formation of the government, he does not mind handing over any other ministry to a specialist he deems appropriate, outside the party.
It seems that there is something more complicated than agreeing on the size of the government and the distribution of its ministries, and that is the role of the International Monetary Fund that the new government must adhere to its difficult agenda, as it stipulates to increase the value added tax (TVA ), liberalize the exchange rate and reduce the size of the public sector. Control limits and raise the price of gasoline?
“LBC” says that these painful reforms are the mandatory gateway for the new government.
Meanwhile, President Michel Aoun stated that he hopes to find a quick solution to the return of the displaced Syrians to their country, especially as several areas of Syria have stabilized after the end of the fighting in them, and noted that Lebanon can no longer to bear more the negative repercussions of this displacement, that Lebanon suffered losses that exceeded 40,000 million dollars, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Aoun informed yesterday to the Russian delegation headed by the Russian President’s special envoy for Syrian Affairs, Alexander Lavrentiev, that the presence of around one and a half million Syrians displaced in Lebanon and about 500 thousand Palestinian refugees, totaling half of the Lebanese population, negatively affects various sectors of it, especially with the economic crisis it is suffering. And the repercussions of Corona’s delinquency, as well as the losses that occurred as a result of the explosion in the port of Beirut. He considered that the Russian initiative, which was launched in 2018 to find a solution to the Syrian refugee crisis, was not completed due to the positions of a number of Western countries that did not provide the necessary funding for this initiative, in addition to linking This return to the search for a political solution to the Syrian crisis is not encouraging, especially considering the Palestinian question. He has been waiting for 72 years and has not yet reached a just and complete solution, nor has the Cyprus question.
President Aoun indicated that the international aid provided to displaced Syrians should be in Syria, because this encourages them to return and ensures their continued assistance. The President of the Republic expressed his hope that the convening of a new conference to discuss the issue of displaced persons will help to find an adequate solution to this humanitarian problem.
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