The Other Faces of the Government
After almost five months of bickering a Lebanese government was born out of a miraculous idea from one of the king makers of the March 8 coalition.
Speaker Nabih Berri decided to switch one of the three ministerial seats allocated to him from three Shiite ministers to two Shiites and one Sunni, thereby removing one of the last remaining major hurdles from the government birth.
He recommended taking Faisal Karami, a Sunni, in his ranks therefore breaking the pact that has prevailed since 1943 of equal seats for the three main communities in Lebanon, the Sunnis, Maronites, and Shiites.
The government now includes seven Sunnis, five Shiites, and six Maronites.
However, there are many other rules that were broken in this government.
First, it includes five ministers from Tripoli, four of them Sunnis out of a total of seven. Only two Sunni ministers belong to Beirut, a very unusual formation. Good luck for Tripoli.
Second, the government also includes five candidates who failed in the last parliamentary elections, something unusual since Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun had previously declared that candidates who did not win the confidence of the people should not become ministers.
The distribution of power in the council of ministers is thus as follows:
1. Twelve ministers to the coalition of Prime Minister Najib Miqati, President Michel Suleiman, and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat with an obvious veto power – six for Miqati, three for Suleiman and three for Jumblat (one of them approved by Aoun)
2. Ten ministers to the Aoun coalition – six to the FPM, two to Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh, and two to the Tashnag party
3. Three ministers to Berri, including Faisal Karami
4. Two ministers to Hizbullah
5. Three ministers to the March 8 coalition – Ali Qanso, Nicolas Fattoush and Talal Arslan
Six ministers without portfolios were appointed: Samir Moqbel (deputy prime minister) Fattoush, Qanso, Ahmed Karami, Panos Malajian, and the unhappy Arslan who resigned after being granted a state ministry portfolio.
Eleven ministers have an Anglo-Saxon education and ten have a French one. Seven ministers have studied Engineering, three studied Law, another three Political Science, and three Natural Sciences, while others have pursued military careers.
Women were absent form this government unfortunately, a very negative image for Lebanon. Even Syria in its latest government appointed a few women.
One cannot please everybody in a country like Lebanon. One wonders how much of the fragile coalition of 68 MP votes will remain to give this government a confidence vote since they have already lost MP Arslan, the unhappy Druze leader without a portfolio. The second Druze MP in Baabda is Fadi al-Aawar. It is not clear whether he would support him.
Let us all wish this government good luck despite the uproar of the March 14 coalition that portrays this government as Bashar Assad and Hizbullah's puppet.
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