Salam Reportedly Receives Support from March 8 Alliance
Lawmaker Tammam Salam is set to be tasked at the weekend with forming a new government after the March 14 coalition officially endorsed him as its candidate for the premiership and the March 8 alliance reportedly agreed late Thursday to back him.
The Beirut MP, who is the son of late Prime Minister Saeb Salam, will now be facing the task of forming a new cabinet whose form and type is until now unclear.
Salam thanked all his followers on twitter “for their warm comments.”
“Let us wait together for the results of the binding consultations,” he said.
March 14 is calling for the formation of a government whose main task will be to supervise the parliamentary elections while the Hizbullah-led March 8 alliance wants a national unity cabinet.
Salam's nomination by March 14 MPs and politicians was endorsed during a meeting held at Center House on Thursday. He has secured the majority of MPs' votes.
Al-Mustaqbal bloc sources told An Nahar daily that around 67 MPs – 60 March 14 lawmakers and the 7 members of Walid Jumblat's centrist National Struggle Front – will name Salam.
March 8 hasn't officially announced its candidate although the binding consultations will be held by President Michel Suleiman on Friday and Saturday.
But media reports, including the pro-Hizbullah al-Akhbar newspaper, said a meeting held Thursday night in Ain el-Tineh between Speaker Nabih Berri, Caretaker Ministers Ali Hassan Khalil and Jebran Bassil, and the Hizbullah leader's political aide Hussein Khalil led to an agreement to name Salam.
The March 8 alliance officials also agreed to prevent March 14 from forming a government whose members are solely from the alliance to prevent a return to the era of the first cabinet led by former PM Fouad Saniora, who is now the head of al-Mustaqbal bloc, al-Akhbar said.
The alliance's chances of securing the formation of a national unity cabinet are high after Jumblat stressed during an interview with LBCI's Kalam al-Nass talk show that he will not participate in any government that does not include all major parties, among them Hizbullah.
Minister Bassil, who represented the Free Patriotic Movement in the caretaker cabinet, told al-Akhbar that the March 8 alliance wants to give the formation of a national unity cabinet a chance, saying its priority is stability and then holding parliamentary elections.
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