Bassil says Salam 'does not deserve confidence'
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Tuesday declared “positive opposition” to Nawaf Salam’s government, hoping it will not turn into “a fierce and comprehensive opposition.”
“We will show you how opposition can be positive, constructive, purposeful and smart, not spiteful, arbitrary, demagogic, populist and destructive, like some did with us,” Bassil added, in a speech in parliament during the debate of the government’s policy statement.
“Mr. Prime Minister Salam, we granted you our confidence when we voted for you, and had it not been for it, you would not have become a premier today. Today we remove this confidence from you, because you have not deserved it,” Bassil added, accusing Salam of unfair representation of Christians in his government.
Separately, Bassil warned Lebanon’s new authorities against taking the country, “whether by mistake or due to foreign encouragement,” to a “civil war,” in an apparent reference to the approach that should be adopted towards Hezbollah, its arms and its supporters.
“Hezbollah made a major strategic mistake in its ‘war of assistance.’ Hezbollah lost the Gaza support war and the "unity of arenas," and we lost with it the equation of deterring Israel. Hezbollah lost national legitimacy by resisting Israel alone, so the word resistance was omitted from the ministerial statement, but Lebanon did not lose the legitimacy of ‘resisting’ the occupation, nor did Hezbollah lose its popular legitimacy,” Bassil said.
“We fully agree with what was stated in the ministerial statement regarding 1701, ‘liberating all land,’ ‘monopoly on carrying weapons,’ ‘decision on war and peace,’ and the defense strategy,” he added.
Lauding the new energy minister’s “objective approach” towards the energy sector, Bassil promised that the FPM will not obstruct his work and lamented that rival parties had allegedly impeded the work of the energy ministers that the FPM had named in the past. The current energy minister, Joe Saddi, is close to the Lebanese Forces, a fierce opponent of the FPM.
Source: Naharnet
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