Independent Sunni MPs Give Hariri '48-hr Deadline' to Meetup

Pro-Hizbullah Sunni MPs said they are giving Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri 48 hours to set a date to meet with them, adamantly stressing their right to be represented in the government, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Monday.

“We are giving Hariri 48 hours to set a date and meet us. Any meeting after that deadline is meaningless,” one of the six so-called Independent Sunni MPs told the daily without being named.

However he said “nothing new has emerged regarding their demands for representation in the government.”

After holding separate parliamentary consultations with Hariri, each as part of his own bloc, the six MPs decided to form a separate bloc.

The MPs are: MP Abdel-Rahim Mrad, Adnan Traboulsi, Qassem Hashem (Amal Movement parliamentary bloc) Walid Sukkarieh (Hizbullah parliamentary bloc), Jihad al-Samad and Faisal Karami belong to a bloc that includes the Marada Movement.

The new government was on the verge of formation on October 29 after the Lebanese Forces accepted the portfolios that were assigned to it but a last-minute hurdle over the representation of the pro-Hizbullah Sunni MPs surfaced.

Hizbullah has insisted that the six Sunni MPs should be given a seat in the government, refraining from providing Hariri with the names of its three Shiite ministers in a bid to press him.

Hariri has rejected the demand, announcing that he’d rather step down than give the aforementioned lawmakers a seat from his own share in the government.