Questions regarding Aoun’s delay in consulting and Basil’s role in setting its date
In a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, the caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, set conditions for him to head the upcoming government, especially since he is the most prominent candidate for it.
Mikati stressed that he will not evade responsibility, and that he has national and not personal conditions to save the country, most notably the adoption of reforms and the financial recovery plan, and placing the electricity sector on the path of rehabilitation, otherwise the candidates will be given the opportunity to take over the prime ministership.
Although Mikati avoids entering into the details of the deliberations that took place between him and the President of the Republic, Michel Aoun, in their last meeting, he confirms that he will not be the head of a government that “takes charge of managing the crisis and extending it in a country that is on the verge of a complete collapse that calls on everyone to meet to save it instead of engaging it in debates.” It is useless to impede efforts to complete what we must do to get our country out of an unprecedented crisis.”
On the other hand, prominent pro-opposition and pro-opposition sources said that President Michel Aoun is delaying the call for binding consultations until the head of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Gibran Bassil, finishes checking the names of the candidates in an attempt to pressure Mikati, as he is the undisputed most likely to take over the prime ministership, and blackmail him, perhaps. He responds to his conditions even though he, Aoun, realizes that delaying her birth will increase the political, economic and financial costs for the country, which can no longer afford to miss opportunities, and opens the door to a rise in the level of popular protests.
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