Geagea: Cabinet Must be Formed Before Holding Dialogue Sessions

Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea criticized on Monday the calls urging for dialogue after the premiership's resignation, and stressed the necessity to form a cabinet before anything else is done.

“Following the resignation of the cabinet, everyone started to praise the benefits of dialogue which we don’t need right now. We cannot lose any minute taking into consideration the difficult situation Lebanon is going through,” said Geagea in an interview with the daily al-Akhbar.

Geagea disagreed with calls of the March 14 alliance and Speaker Nabih Berri for dialogue following PM Najib Miqati's resignation, and stressed the necessity to form a cabinet first.

Berri had said in a statement that the resignation is a “prelude for dialogue between political parties.”

The LF chief added: “It is necessary to form a cabinet that gives new hope and horizons to oversee the preparation for a new electoral law, and hence for elections as soon as possible.”

“We need a government that puts an end to the economic and security deterioration, and everything else is only poetry while the patient is grimaced in pain,” Geagea added.

Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan announced on Sunday that his party will participate in the national dialogue sessions through which agreements over an electoral law and the formation of a new cabinet could be reached.

The Lebanese Forces had suspended in October its participation in the national dialogue sessions, explaining that it is because “Hizbullah did not commit to the Baabda Declaration.”

In the Baabda Declaration, rival March 8 and 14 alliance leaders have affirmed their commitment to the Taef Accord and agreed to distance Lebanon from the policy of regional and international conflicts.

Miqati announced Friday the resignation of his government after a fallout among ministers and called for national dialogue aimed at forming a new cabinet to rescue Lebanon.

His resignation came hours after the country’s president suspended cabinet sessions for failing to pass a decision on the formation of an elections committee to supervise the upcoming parliamentary polls.