Malak Aqeel wrote on the “Asas” website:
Except for the explicit demand of the MPs of the National Moderation Bloc to represent two or three ministers in the next government, no public pressures to minister on the designated Prime Minister Najib Mikati were monitored during the two days of non-binding parliamentary consultations.
But the latter is actually moving within a narrow and difficult margin in light of the widespread boycott of his government and the “conditions” that the Presidency of the Republic, Representative Gibran Bassil and political forces place on him with regard to the form of the government and its “exceptional powers” and the proposed ministerial reshuffles and balances in them, and the entry of speculative Sunni forces to name it, Until the day of confidence, which may be fraught with the dangers of the fall of his government in the House of Representatives.
The confidence of the 85 MPs, which the former Mikati government won, has become a “memories” of the government. In comparison to 15 deputies who voted no-confidence in September 2021, the electors are currently estimated at more than 70 deputies who will not give confidence to the designated president with 54 votes. It is worth noting that the political blocs that gave the previous Mikati government its confidence were “Strong Lebanon”, “Development and Liberation”, “Loyalty to the Resistance”, “Democratic Gathering”, the “Marada Movement”, the National Party, “Independent Center”, and six independent MPs.
Walid Jumblatt may not go far in the government’s “rebellion” and ask the “Democratic Gathering” to grant confidence to the Mikati government, which Jumblatt’s team hinted at by talking regarding “cooperation and facilitating formation.”
However, Najib Mikati’s forces of “resistance” are now known, and they will divide Parliament into three quarters for a quarter, especially if Bassil decides to no confidence this time.
The result will be a meager confidence similar to the “Talif trust”, and nothing will detract from its legality if it falls below half plus one, but it will certainly take care of putting the final touches on the burial ceremony of the “Government Miqatiya” with the end of the era, pointing to the difficulty of the government’s work in the period between Presidential elections.
The most emaciated confidence
A specialized source tells “ASAS” that this confidence may break the record obtained by the government of Omar Karami in 2004 by obtaining the confidence of 59 deputies, and less than the score of confidence for the Mikati government in 2011, which amounted to 63 deputies, which was repeated with President Hassan Diab, whose government won the confidence of 63 Deputy in February 2020.
It is noteworthy that the constitution did not provide for a specific majority for the government to gain confidence in its ministerial statement, and therefore the required majority is the ordinary majority of the total attendance. While Article 34 of the Constitution stipulates that “the meeting of the Council shall not be legal unless the majority of the members who compose it attend it” (the quorum of attendance is 65 deputies).
All of this scenario remains hypothetical because the hypothesis of Najib Mikati’s success in forming his government has not been resolved. Information in this context indicates that MP Jihad Al-Samad’s position yesterday did not come from absurdity, and may be the closest to Mikati’s way of thinking in terms of “activating the current government, either by giving it confidence once more or by expanding the conduct of business on the basis of necessities that allow prohibitions,” but following exhausting ways of compatibility.
These two options are the closest to the “goal” of the designated president, with very limited cabinet reshuffles that affect four or five ministers, then the government will gain confidence once more before the House of Representatives in the event that the caretaker government’s expansion of its powers fails. It is a path being pursued, as a possible option, by the President-designate’s Legal Advisory Group.
This position clearly intersects with the position of Hezbollah, which advised, through its Deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem, “the easiest way to form a new government, even by amending some names to include those who wish to the current government structure.”