Joint committees meeting suspended as FPM MPs leave session

A joint committees session was suspended Tuesday, after the Free Patriotic Movement MPs left it.

"We received a decree from the government that has many constitutional flaws and doesn't carry all the ministers' signatures," FPM chief Jebran Bassil stated after he left the session.

The decree that Bassil mentioned is about the fuel that Lebanon imports from Iraq. The decree had the signature of "five or six" ministers, an FPM MP said. It doesn't have the signature of the caretaker Energy minister and all other ministers.

"This is forgery," Bassil said, adding that the signature of the minister has been used even though he hasn't signed the decree.

He again accused the premiership of bypassing the president's powers by signing a decree, without a president signature.

"We refused to discuss this decree in the joint committees, until the flaws are corrected," Bassil said.

MPs from al-Kataeb and the Lebanese Forces backed the FPM MPs. After Bassil's statement from parliament, Kataeb leader Sami Gemayel and opposition MP and presidential candidate Michel Mouawad stressed, in a press conference, that the caretaker government cannot issue decrees and that parliament cannot legislate until lawmakers elect a president.

Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab who chaired the session said that the debate on whether cabinet can convene has reached parliament and that the only solution to this debate is to elect a president.

Bou Saab had tried during the session to remove the controversial decree and proceed with other articles on the session's agenda, but then suspended the session after the FPM MPs left and refused to return.

Lebanon has been without a head of state since Michel Aoun's mandate expired last year, with a caretaker cabinet overseeing the responsibilities of government amid a financial collapse that is stretching into its third year and this week saw the local currency reach a record low against the U.S. dollar.

The embattled local currency, which in three years has lost more than 95 percent of its value, dropped to a new low Tuesday against the U.S. dollar as it traded over 87,000 to the dollar, compared with 60,000 at the start of the month.