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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Lebanon opens talks to name new PM |
| 2009-09-16 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] ebanese President Michel Sleiman began consultations with MPs on Tuesday in a new bid to appoint a prime minister after Saad Hariri, the majority leader in parliament, abandoned efforts to form a unity cabinet. Sleiman is to meet with the 128 members of parliament during the two-day consultations that are expected to see Hariri re-appointed to the post of premier with at least the 71 votes of his coalition. Hariri, who had been appointed on June 27, and his allies won a majority of 71 seats in an election earlier that month, while a rival coalition led by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah clinched 57. Reflecting a less cordial political climate, the parliamentary bloc of Shiite parliament speaker Nabih Berri, which nominated Hariri for prime minister in June, did not nominate anyone for the post on Tuesday. Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah will not nominate Hariri, political sources said. Neither nominated him in June. The premier's slot is reserved for a Sunni Muslim under Lebanon's complex sectarian political system. Hariri, son of slain billionaire ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, announced he was stepping down last Thursday after the opposition turned down a 30-seat coalition cabinet he had proposed to Sleiman. He accused the Hezbollah-led opposition of blocking weeks of efforts to unlock a political stalemate over the government. But Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah accused him of proposing a line-up that he said would only complicate the situation in Lebanon. |
| Posted by:Fred |