Aoun Calls for Change in Regime Structure, Wants Finance Ministry and 4 State Ministers
Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun has called for the regime”s structural change and showed readiness to accept the finance ministry and four state ministers in the new government.
"The regime”s structure should be changed and veto power is aimed at stopping attempts to violate the law," Aoun told OTV on Wednesday night.
"A majority and minority system does not suit this current regime even if we were from a single sect because the regime is corrupt," he said.
"I accept the finance ministry with four state ministers although they haven”t mentioned this request in their newspapers when we made it," Aoun told Maguy Farah”s "Al Haq Youqal" talk show.
Turning to fighting corruption, he said such an issue is not subject to compromise or negotiation. "When we found mistakes at the telecommunications ministry we behaved in a polite manner. We started telling people (about them) when the judiciary did not act."
He also praised President Michel Suleiman for making the right stance on the issue of giving cabinet seats to election losers.
Asked about the reasons behind PM-designate Saad Hariri”s first failure to form a government, Aoun said: "I am the only one who gave up seats from the percentage of ministries that I am entitled for."
"They can not say that I am complicating the (cabinet) formation" process, he stressed.
Aoun advised Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea not to interfere in the FPM”s internal issues "or else I would say that there are some in the LF who are more qualified to become heads of the executive authority."
Meanwhile, Aoun meets with Hariri at noon Thursday as part of a second round of consultations that the premier-designate has launched with several parliamentary blocs.
The expected meeting is of significant importance, particularly a day after Aoun told OTV that he was personally seeking to reach a solution on the cabinet "because the purpose is for all of us to participate in governing (the country) as part of a reform program."