Special Tribunal is Cause of Cabinet Obstruction
In an interview with LBC television on Saturday, Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra said that the main issue impeding the formation of the cabinet is the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and the indictments the body will eventually hand down.
“The parties who are harmed by the launching of this tribunal did not want it to be established from the beginning. Whoever says that late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s killer will never be known actually does not want the killer to be known,” Zahra said.
“Parties cannot impose their conditions on the prime minister-designate because it would be unconstitutional,” he said, in reference to the cabinet formation process. He added that Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun is not the cause of the obstruction but rather the “means to impede the cabinet formation.”
Zahra commented on Shia cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah’s criticisms of Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir by saying that “the Christian leaders’ attacks on Sfeir made it easy for others to do the same.”
Fadlallah earlier criticized Sfeir’s call for a majority cabinet, saying there should be a referendum that shows the “actual popular majority.”