ASIA/LEBANON - Patriarch Raï's proposal: a "government of leaders" to tackle the crisis in the Lebanese system

Friday, 4 June 2021 middle east  

Bkerké (Agenzia Fides) - A "Government of leaders", which involves the highest representatives of the main Lebanese political parties and political groups as members of the executive, as the only way to overcome the political-institutional paralysis that surrounds Lebanon and seems to risk sending the whole country-system in ruins.
This is the surprising proposal made by Cardinal Béchara Boutros Raï, Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites, in a statement released to the media after his last meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun.
On Wednesday, June 2, the Primate of the Maronite Church went to the Presidential Palace in Baabda to discuss with President Aoun (see photo) the meeting with the Heads of Churches and Christian communities of Lebanon convened by Pope Francis at the Vatican next July 1st. At the end of the meeting with Aoun, urged by journalists, the Patriarch again expressed his bitterness over the crossed vetoes that have prevented the formation of a new national government since last October. Then, continuing with his comments, the Patriarch made an extemporaneous proposal to directly involve all the main political leaders of the opposing sides in the governmental structure, creating a kind of "government of national unity" called to take charge of the serious national emergency.
The Lebanese Cardinal tried to give strength to the proposal by recalling a sort of "historical precedent", represented in his opinion by the first government formed at the time of the Presidency of Fu'ad Shihab, which after 1958 had the participation of the leaders of the opposition parties as members of the executive, such as the founder of the Kataëb party, Pierre Gemayel, and the leader of the National Bloc, Raymond Eddé.
The Lebanese media continues to attribute the failure to form a new executive to the tug-of-war between President Aoun and the Prime Minister in charge, the Sunni Saad Hariri, regarding the ministerial posts to be conferred to some Christian ministers within the government team. In reality, the stalemate that paralyzes the Lebanese political scene has much deeper roots, and even Patriarch Raï's improvised proposal testifies in his own way to the effort aimed at seeking unprecedented and "experimental" solutions in the face of a crisis that seems to have no way out. So far, no relevant political force has expressed support and consent to the Patriarch's proposal. The exponents of the Free Patriotic Current (party founded by the Maronite president Aoun) have given timid signs of opening, while the circles of the Future Party (the political formation of the acting Prime Minister Hariri) have leaked the Lebanese media a substantial mistrust regarding the possibility of taking seriously into consideration the extemporaneous suggestion of the Maronite Cardinal. (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 4/6/2021)


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