Omar Habanjar wrote in the Kuwaiti “al-Anbaa”:
The “Amal” and “Hezbollah” bilateral announcement to return to the Council of Ministers cast a warm shadow on the Lebanese political scene besieged by the frost of January, raised the level of confidence that the legislative elections would take place, and lowered the price of the US dollar once morest the Lebanese pound.
Al-Jaafari Mufti Sheikh Ahmed Qabalan thanked the “duo” for this national step, which reaffirmed that Lebanon lives in its national unity and political partnership. However, former Minister Sejaan Kazzi, advisor to the Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi, commented on the “duo” initiative by saying: “No one can win us beautiful by taking back.” To the Council of Ministers,” as if responding to Representative Hassan Fadlallah, a member of the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc, who considered that the return of the “duo” to the Cabinet is for the sake of the country.
However, the former Minister of Justice, Major General Ashraf Rifi, read in the “duo” a “fall” of Iran’s illusions of controlling the region, and said: “They put a red line on the resignation of Minister George Qardahi, and it fell. It is true that their Iranian project has no place in Lebanon and the region.”
The Metropolitan of Beirut does not appear to the Greek Orthodox, Archbishop Elias Odeh, who is very optimistic regarding developments, and he saw, in his Sunday sermon, that corruption afflicted everyone in Lebanon without discrimination, and likewise the rampant blind partisanship among people, especially the worship of the leader and the sanctification of the party or sect, hoping that our people will learn from the British people How to be a great patriot and hold his officials accountable out of respect for his country, and how to maintain physical distance and not gather, even at funerals, in order to preserve oneself and the health of others.
Of course, all of these varying responses to the duo’s initiative depend on the extent or extent to which it will reach. Is it in order to pass the general budget and the economic recovery plan required by the International Monetary Fund, as stated in the joint statement of Hezbollah and Amal, or is it expandable to include the main appointments that President Michel Aoun and his political heir, Gebran Bassil insist on it, to ensure continuity following the end of the term, and then are there any trade-offs in the matter, as if the release of cabinet sessions is equivalent to the lifting of the siege imposed by the decree opening the special session of the House of Representatives on the agenda of this session, which was drawn by the President Own? Is it really included in the deal that the deputies of his “Strong Lebanon” bloc voted in addition to the formation of a parliamentary investigation committee in preparation for the separation of the file of former Prime Minister Hassan Diab and the ministers pursued by the investigating judge in the port explosion, Tariq Al-Bitar, and referring them to the Supreme Council for the Trial of Presidents and Ministers?
MP Alain Aoun, a member of the Strong Lebanon bloc, denied that the “current” had prior knowledge of the “Amal” and “Hezbollah” move, and also denied that any barter took place, and this is what was suggested by the “Asas Media” website, which is sponsored by the former Minister of the Interior. Nuhad Al-Machnouk, when he spoke regarding the persistent attempts made by Hezbollah to bring regarding a rapprochement between Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and the head of the Free Movement, Gibran Bassil. An analogy from the party with the head of the Marada Movement, Suleiman Franjieh, who did not find himself obliged to save Basil.
The next stage is represented by Finance Minister Youssef Al-Khalil handing over the draft general budget to Prime Minister Najib Mikati, so that the latter initiates an invitation to the Council of Ministers to meet, during the next week, and from the first session, it can be extrapolated to what follows, as if the presence of the “duo” was exclusively with the two items referred to in his statement ( The budget and the recovery plan) and then the return to disruption, or is it a return without travel?
The prevailing opinion in Beirut links the duo’s return to boycotting the government with the progress achieved at the level of international and regional negotiations with Iran. The political writer and lawyer Joseph Abu Fadhel recounts this transformation to a statement by an Iranian official, two weeks ago, in which he affirmed that “things will be good.”
Locally, the return of the “duo” to the Council of Ministers, following suspending its sessions for a period of three months, starting from October 13, was linked to the imminence of the start of official Lebanese negotiations with the International Monetary Fund on the 21st of this month, and the urgency of the need for a general budget for the state at that time, in accordance with the conditions of the IMF and therefore no He negotiated seriously without approving a transparent and reform budget, otherwise there is no economic recovery plan, but a further deterioration of the price of the lira and thus the general collapse, and from here the “duo” of the Cabinet’s agenda was determined in the budget and the recovery plan, which was considered by a Phalangist source as a transgression of the powers of the Prime Minister and therefore the President of the Republic. The two prepare the agenda for the cabinet sessions in consultation.
In any case, the rapid decline of the US dollar from 33,000 pounds to 24,000 is causing concern, as was the case with its rise, and the source of concern is the millions of pounds stored in some cartels, or smuggled to Syria and Iraq, which were acquired for a high dollar to be exchanged for a low-priced dollar.
Representative Jamil Al-Sayed asked, in a tweet, whether “there is an interconnected network between the state and pirates?” He added, “The truth is that the state and the platforms are partners, and the citizen is a dollar difference.”
In the meantime, the Internet service stopped for 700,000 subscribers in some neighborhoods of Beirut and the governorates, due to the exhaustion of diesel fuel and the failure of electricity generators.