Electricity Crisis Expected to Heat up Cabinet

The cabinet is expected to hold a tense session on Thursday amid threats by Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun to withdraw his ministers from the government over a controversial electricity bill.

Cabinet ministers are scheduled to tackle 50 items on the agenda plus the electricity draft law that was proposed by Aoun at parliament and which faced stiff opposition from March 14 lawmakers and criticism from some of his allies.

The draft law, which calls on giving $1.2 billion to Energy Minister Jebran Bassil to build power plants, was also a source of dispute between FPM ministers, PM Najib Miqati and Ministers representing Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat during the last cabinet session.

Aoun said Tuesday that he is committed to serving Lebanon, but “we will not remain in a government that lacks an agenda.”

Miqati and Jumblat’s ministers are stressing that they don’t reject the draft law but are calling for a clear and transparent mechanism to spend the $1.2 billion.

Pan-Arab daily al-Hayat said Miqati has tasked Economy Minister Nicolas Nahhas to reach a common point of view with parliamentary blocs on the troubled electricity sector.

Ministerial sources told the newspaper that Miqati is hoping the electricity project would receive the consensus of parliamentary blocs.

In addition to the power bill, the cabinet will discuss a proposal by the justice minister to appoint two judges to the Judicial Council. An Nahar daily said that the candidates are Judges Ghassan Rabbah and Anthony Issa al-Khoury.

A ministerial source did not rule out the discussion of the security situation at the cabinet session. The source told al-Liwaa daily that the ministers could discuss the Roumieh prison break out, the investigation into the Antelias bombing and the shooting outside former President Suleiman Franjieh’s mansion in Ehden.