BEIRUT: Lebanon could sink like the Titanic if no government is formed, the parliament speaker warned on Monday, as lawmakers approved a bill giving a vital advance to the country’s main electricity company.
Speaker Nabih Berri told a parliamentary session that Lebanon, which he compared to the ill-fated luxury liner, was in danger. “If it sinks, everyone will drown. The time has come to wake up because in the end, if the ship sinks, no one will survive.”
Lawmakers passed a bill giving a crucial treasury advance of LBP300 billion ($200 million) to Electricite du Liban (EDL), with Berri saying the advance was enough to secure fuel for a period of four to six weeks.
One of the four main power plants in Lebanon shut down due to a dispute between the General Directorate of Oil and EDL, while the fate of electricity supplies after six weeks is unclear because of the central bank’s inability to secure dollars for imports.
Some lawmakers objected to the EDL advance.
Lebanese Forces MP George Adwan warned that any “tampering” with the reserves was a violation of depositors’ money, while MP Osama Saad asked the Ministry of Energy how power would be secured when generator owners were extorting people. He rejected giving an advance payment from people’s deposits which, he said, were reserved in banks for the benefit of the central bank.
MP Nicolas Nahas said that giving an advance was a violation of the constitution as this support was from people’s money and, without forming a government, a “real explosion” would happen.
MP Hadi Abul Hassan of the Progressive Socialist Party said “darkness” was coming after three months. “A rescue government must be formed, and the advance should be suspended until a government is formed.”
Against the backdrop of this energy crisis, the country's two most senior politicians continued their dispute about who was to blame for Lebanon not having a government.
In an interview published on Monday in Al-Jumhuriya newspaper, President Michel Aoun dashed hopes about the possibility of any political settlement, which local leaders and foreign diplomats have been pushing for so that the country can regain stability.
He blamed Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri for the lack of progress in forming a new administration.
“Hariri has blasted away all the rules that we are accustomed to adopting in forming governments,” said Aoun. “He does not have the right to impose a line-up that suits him and not the country. I do not want the blocking third in the government, but he has to be convinced that the Armenian Revolutionary Federation is an independent party, and it is not right for him to count it as part of the share of the president of the republic.”
He criticized Hariri for insisting on a government of specialists when the prime minister-designate had nothing to do with specialization and lacked “the standard” that he required in the ministers.
Aoun also denounced Hariri’s insistence on a government of 18 ministers, saying: “I cannot find a justification for not expanding the government.”
Hariri, in response, tweeted: “I have received the message, and there is no need for a response. I ask God to have mercy on the Lebanese people.”
Berri has stopped his mediation between the two men.
