Between forming a cabinet and collapse in Lebanon

Simplifying things can help you understand – even if just a little – the Lebanese situation and its complications including the difficulty of forming a new cabinet by Saad Hariri. There is no government in Lebanon although it’s been three and-a-half months since the parliamentary elections were held on May 6.

This is not the first time there is delay in forming a cabinet. However, this time the delay is due to a clear desire to change the nature of the Lebanese system the foundation of which is the constitution that emanates from the 1989 Taif Agreement. There is a strange insistence - rather suspicious - on forming a cabinet according to “standards” that are based on the result of the parliamentary elections which still has different interpretations.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah used the word “standards” on the basis that he has a special interpretation of the result of the May 6 elections.

What Hassan Nasrallah did not say about these “standards” was said by Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Brigade in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Soleimani considers that Iran has the majority in the new parliament. He specified this majority with 74 MPs out of 128. What he is saying needs to be translated on the ground, especially since those whom Soleimani referred to as the majority did not object to his statements.

Two things are delaying the cabinet formation. The first one is the attempt to translate General Soleimani’s statements to reality and the other thing is linked to how the cabinet is being formed. According to the perspective of Hezbollah and its affiliates, it’s not the prime minister-designate who is forming this cabinet.

There is someone forming the cabinet for Hariri. This is something which the man who has a different vision to what the elections concluded cannot accept. There is a question that’s been asked since 2005, when Rafiq Hariri was assassinated, and it is basic in this current conflict: Is Lebanon an Arab country or does it follow an axis that in turn follows Iran?

Khairallah Khairallah