March 8’s Actions in Latest Cabinet Meeting Are “Unacceptable”
March 14 General Secretariat Coordinator Fares Soueid said that the events that transpired at the cabinet’s Saturday session “completely contradicted” the Taif Accord and represented a breach of the Doha Agreement.
At the session, opposition ministers raised the specter of exercising their veto power, or “obstructing third,” for the first time, as the cabinet discussed the composition of a proposed Election Monitoring Committee. The opposition ministers threatened to pull out of the cabinet if their candidate was not included in the committee.
Soueid said that some March 8 leaders were, in effect, threatening a replay of the May events.
The March 8 movement is “placing the pistol on the table…to threaten all parties to give in to their demands,” he said.
Soueid added that such logic was “unacceptable,” and proved “to all the Lebanese that the March 8 movement wants to build a state according to its own conditions and by the power of arms, whereas the March 14 movement insists on building a democratic state by using democratic means.”
Soueid warned that if March 8 “stays the course Lebanon could witness a very tense period.”