Efforts ongoing to form 11th hour govt., says mediator

The government formation efforts are nearing conclusion and we are in a race with time, a mediator said.

“There is an ongoing attempt to form a government and things are not totally deadlocked. There is still hope that a government will be formed in the eleventh hour and I don’t believe that the president’s term will end without the formation of a government,” the mediator told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Tuesday.

Dodging a question about the identity of the side obstructing the government’s formation, the mediator said: “The complications are big and the most significant is the one related to changing some ministers or forming a government with a major reshuffle that involves around a quarter of the ministers.”

“The efforts are ongoing to resolve this obstacle and there are meetings and consultations that took place over the past hours and will also take place today and tomorrow on the hope that they lead to a breakthrough,” the mediator added.

“There are advices from friends and brothers to form a government enjoying full characteristics and powers that would oversee the signing of the sea border demarcation agreement between Lebanon and Israel, which might take place at UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura before the end of the current month and perhaps next week,” the mediator went on to say.