Bassil lashes out at Hezbollah and others over 'partnership'

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Tuesday blasted Hezbollah, caretaker PM Najib Mikati and other parties over the caretaker cabinet session that was held on Monday, threatening to seek "broad administrative decentralization" should the other forces continue with the same course.

“If someone thinks that they can press us over the presidential issue, we tell them that this matter won’t work because it leads to further stubbornness,” Bassil added at a press conference.

“Mikati is weaker than being able to call for a cabinet session without his ‘handlers’ and he doesn’t dare to do so. Our problem is not with him, but rather with the honest parties who didn’t honor the agreement, the promise and the guarantee,” Bassil went on to say, referring to an agreement in parliament that no cabinet sessions would be held amid the presidential vacuum unless it is extremely necessary.

“A return to the pre-2005 period requires either banishment, imprisonment or extermination and as long as we are alive there will be no return to that period,” a defiant Bassil pledged.

“Our free existence is more precious than any understanding,” he stressed, in a jab at the FPM’s memorandum of understanding with Hezbollah.

He added that what happened “proves that Najib Mikati was required not to form a cabinet.”

“This is what we told everyone when we rejected his designation,” Bassil said.

“We will not accept what happened and the issue shall not pass. What happened is a deliberate robbery against the presidential post,” the FPM chief added.

Moreover, he described Monday’s session as “a death penalty against the constitution, a lethal blow to the Taif Accord and a stab against a national agreement that was declared in parliament.”

“Yesterday’s session was unconstitutional, illegitimate and non-conforming to the National Pact,” Bassil added.