Phalange Party Calls for Ending Cabinet Crisis before Presidential Vote

The Phalange Party on Monday warned against turning the deadlock in the cabinet formation process into an “open-ended crisis that might persist until the date of the presidential election.”

The party cautioned that constitutional vacuum would “pave the ground for the rule of the stronger camp and return Lebanon to the rejected obscurantist era.”

In a statement issued after the weekly meeting of its political bureau, the Phalange Party also called for paying attention to the remarks voiced by Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam, “which were like a political notice about the circumstances of the obstruction and the crippling demands that are preventing the formation of the new cabinet.”

The party voiced regret over the “domestic and foreign obstruction,” calling for “shortening the crisis through forming a responsible, inclusive cabinet which would be able to communicate with the international community … over Lebanon's urgent demands which are necessary to confront the economic hardships and the impending threats created by the Syrian crisis and the issue of refugees.”

The conferees called on the relevant authorities to “activate the theoretical measures they had devised to control the border and the crossings and tighten surveillance of the locations of Syrian refugees.”

They also called for “speeding up the process of asking foreign countries to host the refugees, especially those residing in Lebanon.”

The party hoped the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha will witness the release of the nine Shiite pilgrims who were abducted in Syria's Aazaz, the two Turkish pilots nabbed in Lebanon and the two bishops kidnapped near Aleppo, in addition to Phalange member Butros Khawand and all the detainees who are believed to be in Syrian regime prisons.

The Phalange Party called on the Lebanese leaders, parties, groups and citizens to reject “any foreign interference” and “salvage national unity.”

It also urged the caretaker cabinet to take the measures necessary to “guarantee the safety of its citizens who live in northern and Bekaa border towns, which are frequently coming under artillery bombardment from the Syrian side of the border,” calling for “the summoning of the Syrian ambassador to inform him of a firm official stance in this regard.”