Berri Urges Formation of National Unity Cabinet to Press Officials to Assume their Responsibilities

Speaker Nabih Berri urged on Saturday President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam to form a national unity cabinet, saying that the 9-9-6 formula aims at ending the vacuum.

“If I was in the place of Suleiman and Salam I would issue decrees to form a national unity cabinet and make all parties assume their responsibilities,” Berri said in comments published in al-Akhbar newspaper on Saturday.

However, the speaker said that a de-facto cabinet will not achieve the purpose.

Berri defended the 9-9-6 cabinet formula, saying that the March 14 and 8 coalitions would have equal number of portfolios, which would balance the cabinet.

“This formula doesn't outweigh a team over the other,” He added.

Endeavors are ongoing to end the cabinet deadlock amid reports that Suleiman insists on forming it ahead of the Independence Day on November 22 based on any distribution of portfolios as long as the rival parties agree.

“The March 14 alliance should understand that our team along with (Progressive Socialist Party leader MP) Walid Jumblat have two thirds of the current cabinet and the absolute majority of the parliament,” Berri noted.

Salam continuously said that conditions and counter-conditions set by the rival sides have brought his efforts to form a cabinet to a stalemate.

Since his appointment to form a cabinet in April, Salam has been seeking the formation of a 24-member cabinet in which the March 8, March 14 and centrists camps would each get eight ministers.

However, Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah expressed support to Jumblat's proposal to form a new cabinet in which the March 8 and 14 alliances would get nine ministers each and six ministers would be given to the centrists – Suleiman, Salam and Jumblat.

This formula prevents a certain party from controlling the government by giving veto power to Hizbullah and its team and another veto power to March 14, he said.