Premier-designate Najib Miqati is trying to avoid a dispute with Speaker Nabih Berri, who is making all efforts to speed up the cabinet formation process by suggesting a 49-article agenda for the June 8 parliamentary session instead of restricting it with renewing the term of the Central Bank governor, the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reported on Monday.

Sources told the daily that Berri doesn’t want to shift the government formation crisis to parliament.

Speaker Nabih Berri has decided not to directly follow up on the cabinet formation process, tasking his advisor MP Ali Hasan Khalil to carry out the mission, An Nahar reported on Monday.

“I am waiting to reach the stage of decision and formation,” Berri said.

Speaker Nabih Berri’s advisor, MP Ali Hasan Khalil, boycotted on Saturday the latest “mediatory” meeting with Prime Minister-designate Najib Miqati, leaving it up to Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s advisor, Hussein Khalil, to complete the mission of holding talks with Miqati to remove obstacles hindering the government formation.

Berri reportedly left his Ain al-Tineh residence in Beirut and headed to the South on Friday without meeting with the premier-designate as was scheduled after the later issued a statement announcing that he will not take part in the June 8 parliamentary session that the speaker had called for.

Some 700 Syrians and Lebanese staged a rally in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Saturday to show their support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Syrian residents of Lebanon organized the demonstration in the southern suburb of Hay al-Sellum, a bastion of Hizbullah, to display their support for Assad and his late father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad.

Premier-designate Najib Miqati announced his boycott of the June 8 parliamentary session out of fears that if he attended the meeting he would be accused of procrastination in the formation of the new cabinet, his sources said.

The sources told An Nahar daily published Saturday that Miqati made his decision to shrug off accusations that he prefers giving executive authorities to parliament rather than speeding up the government formation process.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has said that the cabinet crisis would be solved only if some blocs reviewed their stances and formed a new parliamentary majority.

“There is no possibility to end the crisis unless some parliamentary blocs reviewed their stances and formed a new majority that quickly works on holding things together by forming a cabinet and filling the current void,” Geagea told the Saudi Okaz daily published Saturday.

Premier-designate Najib Miqati did not propose a cabinet line-up to President Michel Suleiman during their meeting on Friday but the head of state hoped that the government would be formed by mid next week, presidential sources told As Safir daily on Saturday.

The sources expressed optimism at the latest consultations aimed at forming the government. They expected results soon if the “positive atmosphere” remained.

Premier-designate Najib Miqati has denied reports that a deal was reached to end the cabinet deadlock, saying he was still waiting for parliamentary blocs to provide him with the names of their candidates for the government seats.

“I haven’t been informed about anything,” Miqati told al-Akhbar daily in remarks published Friday.

Deputy Speaker Farid Makari and some members of the Parliament Bureau Committee, MP Ahmed Fatfat, Marwan Hamadeh, Antoine Zahra, and Serge Toursakissian condemned on Thursday Speaker Nabih Berri’s decision to hold a parliament session on June 8, labeling it as “a blow to democratic parliamentary practices in Lebanon.”

They said in a statement: “His decision violates the privileges of the committee and parliament’s internal system in that he devised next week’s schedule by himself.”

Head of the National Struggle Front bloc Walid Jumblat reportedly opposes a planned parliamentary session aimed at renewing the mandate of the Central Bank governor and might boycott the meeting on June 8.

Jumblat’s sources told As Safir daily on Thursday that the Druze leader prefers to resort to a “mobile draft-law” to renew Riyad Salameh’s mandate rather than holding a session amid the absence of a government.