Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced in a statement upon his departure from Parliament that “in light of the external indicators that we are receiving and the foreign tours that I am making, we see great support for Lebanon and an effort to help it, while inside the country we see confusion and efforts by some to invest all matters in electoral campaigns, sometimes from A group that opposes the covenant is accepted and sometimes by a group that opposes the government and attacks it,” explaining that “the biggest loser of these campaigns is the country. With the government and by offering confidence in it, I said why not, as long as our papers are open and we are ready to present what we have in all transparency, and to clarify the problems we suffer from, and if the Parliament is ready to cooperate with us, this is essential because the country requires concerted efforts.”
He continued, “It is not possible to solve the problems that we suffer from in the populist way that we are witnessing, and the homeland is paying the price today. As I said on more than one occasion, the situation is not healthy, but if we do not all unite to find solutions, we cannot get out of the crisis we are going through.”
And regarding the team that calls for a vote of confidence in the government, he said: You have heard the statements made yesterday.
Regarding the “Capital Control” file, he said: “This issue has been presented to Parliament two months ago as a law proposal, and the Parliament was the one who requested the IMF’s comments, and we added them to the proposal presented to the Parliament, so they asked once more that we refer it as a bill by the government, and this is what will happen.” We are ready to be held accountable for any work we do, and I repeat the call for full cooperation between us and the honorable Representatives and Parliament, and with all due respect to all opinions, but they must be presented on the basis of the national interest.
In response to a question, he answered: “One of the government’s tasks today is to hold parliamentary elections, and I cannot be tempted to resign so that it is not a justification for disrupting the elections, and I will not be a reason to disrupt the elections, and for this reason I will not resign.”
