It is common for advocates of the need to form a new government, that it must complete negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to conclude the final agreement, as well as accompany President Michel Aoun in his last important decision – if it is intended to reach its conclusion before the end of the term – which is the maritime border demarcation agreement with Israel. With the exception of these two important and necessary items, it becomes an exaggeration to say that the existence of a new government is of little importance. Perhaps because of them, and some say that neither of them will be achieved, the parties unanimously expect an imaginary tug of war and a waste of time without the new government seeing the light of day.
It is not of paramount importance for Mikati to be at the head of a new government, as long as he will remain the caretaker prime minister until the end of the president’s term. After that, his resigned government – floated beyond the conduct of ordinary business to more than the conduct of business – will receive the powers of the President of the Republic. The same will also happen with a new government that will be formed before reaching next August, so it will end up on October 31 to assume the powers of the first presidency in accordance with the provisions of Article 62. The paradox, in the third identical possibility that leads to the same result, is that a new government issues its decrees and it is impossible to Having obtained the confidence of the House of Representatives, it just turns into a caretaker government, which ends up doing the same as the other two options.
Thus, my time will be the best. The winner is supposed to come at a time when the battle for the presidency of the republic is scheduled for the other parties to start counting their losses and estimating the steps of their regression day after day. That is what it means in the best case, their pessimistic meeting on the exclusion of the formation of a new government, and their willingness to deal realistically with the flotation of the caretaker government. What is between this and that – if it is composed – the differences are flimsy.
As for the actual motives for the influential parties’ belief to lower their hopes of forming a new government, they lie in a few facts. Of which:
1 – Mikati’s preference for his current government, with its apparently independent members, over any new political government that some want to be at the cabinet table when the position of the President of the Republic becomes vacant. Mikati adheres to the current sizes of the forces affiliated with his government and the portfolios distributed to them, which makes him refuse to reconsider the size of any of these or the portfolios they occupy, or to make a switch between them.
2 – The actual partner of the designated president is the President of the Republic, not the parliamentary blocs, in the direction that accompanies the current entitlement. Without Aoun’s signature, there will be no new government, whatever its specifications. However, the only alternative to dispensing with the signature of the President of the Republic is to pass time until the end of his term, and then transfer his powers to it.
3- Although the first governments after general parliamentary elections must be formed by taking into account the results of those elections, so that they are in their image on the one hand, and enjoy the confidence of the elected parliament on the other hand, this is not the case in the new elections. The mere fact that the president-designate said that he is inclined to continue the experience of his current government indicates that he has exceeded the results of the May 15 elections with all the important transformations that accompanied them, whether with regard to the forces that left Parliament, or those who won more or for the first time even, or those whose shares have declined. Some of the ministers of the resigned government represent political references that lost the May elections, others have diminished in size or disintegrated, and some third cannot be ignored. However, there are also parties in the caretaker government, such as the Shiite duo, who are not eager, in a new government, to abandon allies who lost or were weakened by the parliamentary elections.
Perhaps the clearest example of the significance of the results of the parliamentary elections being reflected in the formation of a new government is that the Druze representation returns to Walid Jumblatt alone. His covenant representation of his sect.
The signature of the President of the Republic cannot be dispensed with except for the continuation of the caretaker government
4 – Although the 54 mandate votes that Mikati won on June 23 are not enough to gain confidence in his new government – if it is formed – and he may need a great effort to convince the 71 opponents of his mandate, whether they voted for him or chose not to name him by granting her confidence, but what is known to him is not He is about to add to his government those who were not represented in it before the last parliamentary elections. This is true of the new deputies in civil society as well as others. The most justification for his preference for his resigned government over any new one is that he is not willing to give in a new government what he has not been given in the caretaker government. The direct opponent declared before him is the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Gebran Bassil, who did not vote for his assignment, and at the same time wants a political government, and is armed with the signature of the President of the Republic.