by arabnews.com — PARIS: France will hold a humanitarian aid conference for Lebanon in November, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Wednesday. The conference was initially planned for the end of October. Le Drian also told the French National Assembly that the Lebanon international contact group would meet in the coming days to reiterate the need for the formation of a government.
by dailystar.com.lb — BEIRUT: Now that President Michel Aoun has set Oct. 15 as the date for binding consultations with parliamentary blocs to designate a new prime minister, attention is focused on who will be the favorite candidate to be chosen to form a new government. Also, in the absence of a consensus among rival factions on a single candidate for the premiership, it remains to be seen whether Aoun’s move will pave the way toward agreement on the shape and make-up of the next Cabinet. Meanwhile, France, which has emerged as the main power broker in Lebanon since the deadly explosion that devastated Beirut Port in August, will hold a humanitarian aid conference for Lebanon in November, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Wednesday. The conference was initially planned for the end of October.
Le Drian also told the French National Assembly that the Lebanon international contact group would meet in the coming days to reiterate the need for the formation of a government. France and the international community have been pushing Lebanon’s political leaders to agree on the swift formation of a new government to enact reforms badly needed to unlock promised international aid to steer the crises-ridden country out of its worst economic and financial crunch since the 1975-90 Civil War. “President Aoun has given parliamentary blocs eight days to agree on a candidate to be designated as the next prime minister,” a source at Baabda Palace told The Daily Star Wednesday. “For his part, the president will hold a series of contacts with heads of parliamentary blocs to urge them to speed up a consensus on naming a candidate for the premiership,” the source said.
The source added that Aoun was unlikely to hold side talks with parliamentary blocs in a bid to reach a consensus beforehand on a new premier as he did in the run-up to the designation of Hassan Diab as prime minister last December before holding the binding consultations with these blocs. Aoun’s action at the time had sparked a controversy and accusations, mainly from Future Movement MPs, about violating his constitutional powers with regard to the Cabinet formation process. Under the Constitution, Aoun is required to designate a candidate for prime minister with the most support from parliamentary blocs. A statement released by the presidency said that under Article 53 in the Constitution, the president would hold parliamentary consultations to designate a prime minister to form a new government on Oct. 15 at Baabda Palace. The one-day consultations will take place more than two months after caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned over the Aug. 4 port explosion, and 19 days after Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib stepped down, saying he was unable to break the stalemate over the shape of the new government.
