Minister Ahmed Fatfat: The opposition was negotiating yesterday through Berri, not Aoun

 

Youth and Sports Minister Ahmed Fatfat said that the majority will take a decisive stance before Saturday that will decide the course of events in the coming days.

 

Fatfat said that March 14 will see if contacts that are being made are serious or only a political maneuver.

“If it is only maneuvering, the government might submit a proposal to amend the constitution,” Fatfat told the Voice of Lebanon radio station.

 

He noted that the majority has made public a series of compromise suggestions, but so far it has been met with additional obstructions.

 

“We did not raise the issue of the governmental proposal to amend the constitution to not provoke the other party,” Fatfat said.

 

“The true provocation is the near end of the period through which the parliament can amend the constitution,” he added.

 

The general session during which the parliament can amend the constitution ends on New Years’ eve. If Article 49 is not amended to facilitate the election of Army Commander General Michel Sleiman before that, the parliament will have to wait until its next general session in mid-March.

 

Fatfat said that the majority is not refusing to meet with MP Michel Aoun. “It is his way of dealing with other factions. His ‘either-myself-or-no-one’ position is making things more complicated.”

 

“Until yesterday, the opposition was negotiating through Speaker Nabih Berri but has commissioned publicly MP Michel Aoun. But in fact, Berri was conducting the negotiations,” Fatfat noted.

 

He also reiterated March 14’s stance on respecting the constitutional procedure to elect the president, name the prime minster and commission him to establish the government.

 

“We believe that a president must be elected on Saturday, but this depends on the opposition. The maneuvering can no longer carry on, for it has been exposed internally and externally.”