Report: Maarab Agreement's ‘Failure, Topples’ Government Formation

The outbreak of dispute between the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces after the “fall” of the Maarab Agreement “eliminated all hope on the possibility of forming the country’s government anytime soon,” Kuwait’s As-Siyasah newspaper reported on Sunday.

The report published by the daily came after the LF leaked the highly confidential Maarab Agreement between the two parties to the media.

In remarks to the daily, senior LF sources accused FPM chief Jebran Bassil of “being responsible for the collapse of the media truce that was agreed upon between the Christian parties, and of dragging Lebanon to a civil war if President Michel Aoun, whom we have full confidence in, does not intervene,” they said.

They stressed “there is no solution to the crisis that Bassil has created,” and that President Aoun “should put his hand on the file in full. The escalation came from the side supposed to be the closest to the President, but the FPM chief has violated the stance of Aoun by targeting the appeasement he called for.”

Continuing to lash out at Bassil, the LF source added: “Through his spractices, Bassil wants to say he is the one who forms the government, but things can not go this way. Bassil is only a political team, he is not entitled to put himself in the position of President or determine the size of other political parties.”

“The actions of the president's son-in-law (Bassil) are a great insult to the tenure (of Aoun),” he added, stressing “Aoun is not covering whatsoever for the actions of his son-in-law. Bassil is trying to picture the Presidency as a formality which affirms that the Foreign Minister has his own agenda to implement at the expense of the country and Christians.”

The LF leaked the highly confidential agreement to the media in recent days amid bickering with the FPM over the share that each of them should get in the new government.