Salam: I Won't Allow Anyone to Challenge the Cabinet
Prime Minister Tammam Salam has rejected claims that he is suppressing some parties in the government, warning them not to challenge him.
“I am practicing my constitutional authorities and neither challenging nor quelling anyone,” Salam told al-Liwaa daily published on Friday.
“Yet I won't allow anyone to challenge me or challenge the government,” he warned.
Salam reiterated that no party can impose its stance on others. “The opposition of five ministers does not abolish the support of 18 others who voted on the decree to export” agricultural and industrial products.
The premier told the newspaper that the decision to back the products is “vital and patriotic,” and involves all citizens and sects from across Lebanon.
On Thursday, the government approved the decree to allot 21 million dollars to help export the products by sea despite a dispute on the issue because Free Patriotic Movement, Hizbullah and Tashnag Party ministers stressed that no issue should be discussed until the appointments of high-ranking military and security officials were made.
“We had adopted consensus among the ministers as a decision-making mechanism to manage the country's and the people's affairs,” said Salam.
“We hadn't adopted paralysis to abolish what remains of the state and the people's hopes,” he added.
Asked why he stormed out of the cabinet session on Thursday, Salam said that he left the hall after he adjourned the session based on his constitutional authorities and after he made sure that the decree was approved.
Lebanon's agriculture and industrial sectors plunged in crisis after Jordan closed the Nassib border crossing with Syria earlier this year, making it impossible for the products to be transported by land through trucks to Gulf countries.
In a swift response to Salam's remarks, Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan said: "We are being challenged and not the PM."
"If they want confrontation then let it be from inside and outside the cabinet," warned the lawmaker in a comment to Voice of Lebanon (100.5) radio.
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