Bou Saab says Berri will focus on presidential crisis after holidays
Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab said Wednesday after meeting Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, that Berri will be focused on electing a new president after the holidays.
"I think that electing a president is a priority to Speaker Berri," Bou Saab said.
Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun's term ended in October last year, while its government has been running in a limited caretaker capacity.
The Free Patriotic Movement ministers had been boycotting all cabinet sessions, including a session during which caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati signed a law passed by parliament that extended the term of army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun.
Aoun's departure would have added another gap to crisis-hit Lebanon's withering and paralyzed institutions but the FPM said its lawmakers will submit an appeal against the law before the constitutional council, as it considered it unconstitutional.
Tensions meanwhile rose between FPM Defense Minister Maurice Slim and Mikati over the military posts crisis.
Mikati reportedly said that Slim was finished to him "since he came to the Grand Serail and started shouting."
"The Prime Minister must deal with all ministers," Bou Saab said. "We need to solve the problem, not to complicate it."
Source: Naharnet
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