Lebanonwire.com | Lebanese PM inches closer to new government

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April 19, 2005

Lebanese PM inches closer to new government
by Nayla Razzouk

BEIRUT - Lebanese prime minister-designate Nagib Miqati Tuesday pressed on with talks in the hope of rapidly forming a government able to organise crucial elections by a May deadline.

As Washington vowed to "help the Lebanese people run their own affairs," the top Syrian military official in Lebanon, Brigadier General Rustom Ghazaleh, was due to visit Lebanese leaders on an official farewell tour.

Ghazaleh's visit comes ahead of a farewell ceremony for Syrian troops which served in Lebanon in the last 29 years on April 26 at the Riyaq air base in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley.

Syria still needs to pull out its remaining 1,500 troops from Lebanon under a pledge to complete its withdrawal by the end of the month, under pressure from the United Nations, the United States and France.

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that the death on Monday of ex-Lebanese minister Bassel Fleihan from wounds sustained in a Beirut bombing in February "makes us more determined than ever to help the Lebanese people run their own affairs."

"Free and fair democratic elections on time would help honor his memory," Boucher said.

Fleihan had been seriously wounded in the explosion that killed former prime minister Rafiq Hariri and which many blamed on the regime and political masters in Damascus which then decided to pullout completely from Lebanon.

The massive bombing sparked widespread protests that brought down the government in Lebanon which remained in political vaccum for six weeks before Miqati's designation on Friday.

Some MPs told AFP that Miqati, a compromise choice agreed by the opposition and pro-Syrian supporters of the outgoing government, could announce the formation of the government later Tuesday.

The telecommunications tycoon, close to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, was expected to meet with President Emile Lahoud and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri later Tuesday, officials said.

Miqati said after parliamentary consultations on Monday that he had detected an emerging consensus in favour of a narrow-based government with the limited role of organizing next month's elections.

Miqati, who also met business leaders on Monday, said the new government would also focus on "meeting the economic challenges in the country and protecting monetary stability" in a country facing 34 billion dollars in debt.

Sources close to the consultations said the new government may be made up of 14 technocrat members, down from 30 ministers in the outgoing government of mainly politicians.

Opposition and loyalist MPs, each for their own agenda, have pledged to facilitate Miqati's task in forming the government, raising hopes of an end to Lebanon's worst political crisis since the 1975-90 civil war.

Despite his close links to the Syrian leadership, the opposition has accepted to back Miqati after he pledged to meet some of their demands, mainly to hold timely elections and sack security chiefs accused of negligence or worse over Hariri's murder.

The United Nations has launched an international commission of inquiry into Hariri's assassination after a UN factfinding mission found serious shortcomings in Lebanon's own investigation.

Officials here expected that UN chief Kofi Annan would delay by a week the progress report he was due to present on Tuesday on Syria's implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 which calls for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon.