Berri: We Won’t Allow Parliament Tensions to Spill Onto Streets
During the fourth parliamentary debate session on the new government’s Policy Statement, Speaker Nabih Berri voiced alarm over the angry exchanges among some lawmakers.
Addressing MPs, Berri said: “The remarks we have been hearing highlight the fact that this country needs a real reconciliation and you are responsible about this reconciliation before the public opinion.”
“There are bets that the tensions in parliament will spillover onto the streets, and this is what we will not allow,” Berri stressed.
The house speaker struggled all through the session to pacify the heated debate.
“Either you keep silent or I’ll expel you from the session,” Berri told MP Ali Hassan Khalil, his political advisor, who interrupted Mustaqbal bloc MP Nohad al-Mashnouq’s statement several times.
Addressing the members of his Development and Liberation bloc and Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc, Berri shouted: “I’m the one running this session, not you!”
Three days of parliamentary talks that began Tuesday will end on Thursday with a vote of confidence on Prime Minister Najib Miqati's government in which Hizbullah and its allies control the majority of seats.
The Hizbullah-led alliance also holds a slight majority in parliament.
The vote comes days after the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon issued an indictment in the 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri, implicating four Hizbullah operatives in the murder.
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://naharnet.com/stories/en/9838 |