Report: Govt. Formation Not Final Yet, Conflict Unlikely over Shape

Crisis-hit Lebanon has not recorded a breakthrough yet in the process of lining up a government, amid different aspirations, some pressing for the formation of a cabinet of experts and others for a techno-political government, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported on Tuesday.

PM-designate Mustafa Adib prefers the formation of a small government of 14 or 16 ministers. He also wants its members to be “political moderates or non-provocative figures.”

Meanwhile, President Michel Aoun, Hizbullah and the AMAL Movement prefer a techno-political government.

After his designation, Adib vowed to form a crisis cabinet within two weeks to push forward with key reforms and lead the country out of political turmoil and an economic crisis that was already crippling the country before the portside blast in Beirut.

Sources following up on the formation process, told al-Joumhouria that political parties “will likely agree on a government of experts.”

They added that “commitment of all political parties to the French initiative and its success, and to the acceleration of the government formation, in addition to the massive external pressure mainly by the French to expedite the formation process, all tend to weaken any possibility of any clash over the form of the government, or any insistence to involve politicians in it.”

They added that political parties likely avoid old habits of bickering over ministerial portfolios and shares, and instead accept the smooth transition to a government of specialists supported by a political cover from outside.