Negotiations to form a new government are continuing in Lebanon despite the expiration of the 15-day deadline, promised by the various political camps and announced by French President Emmanuel Macron, on September 1 during his visit to Beirut.
"I am fully aware that we do not have the luxury of time," conceded Prime Minister designate Moustapha Adib, Thursday, September 17, during a press point, while the ongoing negotiations are still stumbling over the attribution of the finance portfolio.
"We have agreed to give more time to consultations" with a view to forming a government, he said after an interview with President Michel Aoun.
Several Lebanese sources have indicated that the new deadline for setting up a ministerial team has been set for Sunday, September 20, reports Charbel Abboud, correspondent for France 24 in Beirut.
The Prime Minister, who hinted that he could recuse himself in case of failure, said he hoped to be able to count on "the cooperation of all parties".
According to the French-language daily L'Orient-Le Jour, "the French crisis unit in charge of the Lebanese file would have pushed Moustapha Adib to be patient, insofar as his withdrawal at this stage would be a real leap into the unknown".
Paris tries to remove the obstacle around the Ministry of Finance
France, which on Wednesday called on all parties to assume their responsibilities and "finally act in the sole interest of Lebanon", is stepping up contacts to unblock the issue of the attribution of the finance ministry.
The blocking around this portfolio results from the demand of the Shiite tandem made up of Hezbollah and its ally, the Amal party, to see it attributed to a "Shiite personality", as has been the case since 2014.
Charbel Abboud reports that an interview on this issue took place during the week between the French Ambassador, Bruno Foucher, and Hezbollah's head of external relations, Ammar Moussaoui.
Several Lebanese media reported that Bernard Emié, former French ambassador in Beirut and current director of the DGSE, also participated in the meeting by videoconference.
A source close to the Shiite party even told L'Orient-Le Jour that at the end of the meeting, "the French had accepted the principle of allocating finance to the Shiite community".
"This is an essential condition in the eyes of the Shiite tandem, because in Lebanon, the decrees are generally co-signed by the President of the Republic who is Maronite, by the Prime Minister who comes from the Sunni community, as well as by the Minister of Finance, explains Charbel Abboud. Neither Hezbollah nor the Amal movement want to give up the Shiite countersignature ".
So far, Moustapha Adib has always said he is determined to question the allocation of ministerial posts on a fixed denominational basis, in order to rotate the communities and the portfolios.
An opinion that seems shared by the tenors of the Sunni political scene.
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri said on Wednesday via his Twitter account that the finance ministry was not "the exclusive right" of a specific community and that the refusal to rotate portfolios according to communities has for objective of "derailing the last possible chance to save Lebanon and the Lebanese".
The land of the Cedars in the dead end
The impasse therefore remains total.
In a statement released Thursday, the Hezbollah parliamentary group reaffirmed the demands of the Shiite tandem while vilifying "those who form the government in the shadows", in an implicit reference to the Sunni camp.
"We refuse to appoint our ministers in our place. And we refuse to oppose the fact that the component that we represent does not have the Ministry of Finance," said Hassan Nasrallah's party.
France's room for maneuver, heavily invested in Lebanon since the double explosion of August 4 at the port of Beirut, seems to be reaching its limits in the face of a political system based on confessionalism and political bargaining.
A certain practice of power abhorred by a large part of the population and which provoked, last fall, a protest movement against the entire political class, considered incompetent and corrupt.
Yet there is an emergency, since international aid of several billion dollars was promised to Lebanon in 2018, even before the double explosion that devastated the port of Beirut and several districts of the capital.
But these funds remain blocked pending a government plan for structural and credible reforms.
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