Lebanese Ministry of Information
Top political party leaders represented in the Cabinet will meet Thursday at the invitation of President Michel Aoun with talks expected to center around means to streamline the work of both the executive and legislative bodies over the coming months. Thursday’s meeting comes after Wednesday’s Cabinet session decided to refer the electricity plan put forward by Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil to the government’s Tenders Department.
Speaker and Amal Movement leader Nabih Berri; MP Mohammad Raad, representing Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah; Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea; Future Movement leader and Prime Minister Saad Hariri; and Marada Movement leader Sleiman Frangieh will be among the leaders joining talks at the presidential palace. This will be Frangieh’s first visit to Baabda Palace since he lost the presidential election to Aoun in October 2016.
Lebanese Democratic Party-affiliated Minister for the Displaced Talal Arslan; Free Patriotic Movement head and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil; MP Asaad Hardan, representing the Syrian Social Nationalist Party; and MP Hagop Pakradounian representing the Tashnag Party will also be present. Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt, who is currently in Moscow, will be represented by Education Minister Marwan Hamadeh.
But as Aoun’s meeting only brings together heads of political parties represented in the government, the session has drawn opposition from those not invited, particularly Kataeb Party leader MP Sami Gemayel. The Kataeb Party refused a seat in Cabinet and instead opted to become a self-styled opposition to the government.
“There are signs that the authority wants to run the country as a dictatorship and wants to run the country in closed rooms,” Gemayel told a news conference Wednesday. “There is a serious danger of transforming Lebanon into a state that is governed by a cartel that is ready to use force and power to oppress the opposing opinion,” he said, describing the Baabda meeting as “incomplete.”
On the ministerial level, crucial matters developed Wednesday after a Cabinet session at Baabda Palace, chaired by Aoun, referred Abi Khalil’s plan to the Tenders Department, delaying bids he had already forged ahead with. The energy minister, who represents the Free Patriotic Movement, has been facing pressure from several political parties over his electricity reform plan to lease two power barges to increase electricity supply over the summer. Abi Khalil’s plan drew controversy over whether he had overstepped his jurisdiction to carry out the bidding process without the Tenders Department and whether the large sums involved required the scrutiny of the government body. The electricity reform plan has been met opposition since it was passed to Cabinet on March 28. The plan has been staunchly opposed by FPM ally the LF, Berri, the Kataeb Party and the Marada Movement.
Berri had insisted the tender to find companies to operate the electricity barges should first and foremost be handled by the the government body.
“[The Cabinet has decided] to refer the file related to bringing power barges to the Tenders Department in order to open financial offers and prepare a full report on tendering and refer it to the [energy] minister to prepare a detailed report,” Information Minister Melhem Riachi told reporters after the meeting. “[The minister] will then submit it to Cabinet to deal with as soon as possible.” He said Cabinet had agreed to move swiftly to launch tenders to involve the private sector in energy production.
However, some parties expressed stronger opposition to the whole endeavor. “We are against the electricity plan,” Marada Movement Public Works and Transport Minister Youssef Fenianos told reporters. “We are with Hezbollah but we want to see how long it will go against its convictions,” he added in reference to the group’s position of being neither totally in favor or against the plan. Fenianos’ comments prompted a response from Hezbollah-affiliated Industry Minister Hussein Hajj Hasan, who said, “We take our stance based on our convictions and principles and objectively.”
However, Abi Khalil told reporters he had previously “expressed … willingness to present the issue to the Tenders Department.”
LF Secretary-General Chantal Sarkis described Wednesday’s developments as an achievement.
“Now it has gone to the Tenders Department, which will review the bidding’s legal course and present Cabinet with a report regarding the issue,” Sarkis told The Daily Star.
Touching on the status of electricity in Lebanon, Aoun said the total financial deficit from the poorly managed electricity sector over the past 25 years – between 1992 and the end of 2016 – had reached $33 billion.
The president said this deficit represented 44 percent of the total public debt, which stood at some $75 billion at the end of December 2016 and had already exceeded $78 billion by the end of May 2017.
“If the electricity problem had been resolved in the mid-1990s, then the size of the public debt would have been … [just] $42 billion at the end of 2016,” Aoun said, according to the statement.
“And citizens would have saved the extra costs, which have exceeded $16 billion since the ’90s and are now estimated at $700 million annually, and the economy would have registered additional growth.”
Hariri, according to the statement, said the current consensus prevalent in Cabinet obliges them to take a perspective on the electricity dilemma that would ensure the benefit of the people and Lebanon.
“The appropriate decision needs to be taken on this issue because it is unnatural that electricity is available for only 11 and 12 hours at a time, when the solutions are there to improve production,” Hariri said during Cabinet, according to the statement. The premier also told ministers that although some parties that are affected by the increase in production would denounce any reforms, moving forward was must.
On another topic, both Aoun and Hariri praised the agreement on a new vote law made last week, with Aoun stressing that the elections need to be held as scheduled in Spring/Summer 2018, while expressing his support for the magnetic electoral card.
Upon the request of Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, Cabinet also agreed to hold a meeting to discuss the security situation in the country, particularly in the Bekaa Valley. Riachi also said that Hariri was looking into means to specify Lebanese products that can be exported to the European Union. – Additional reporting by Joseph Haboush
