The newly nominated prime minister Hassan Diab met with President Michel Aoun on Tuesday in the Baabda Palace. The Lebanese Presidency tweeted from its official account a photo from the meeting, stating: “The Prime Minister-designate of the government, Dr. Hassan Diab, from Baabda: We talked in the general framework with His Excellency the President … Things are going as they should.”
الرئيس المكلّف لتشكيل الحكومة الدكتور حسان دياب من بعبدا: تحدثنا في الإطار العام مع فخامة الرئيس.. الأمور تسير كما يجب وانشالله خير pic.twitter.com/UtkhtZsCNj
— Lebanese Presidency (@LBpresidency) December 24, 2019
After the meeting, Dr. Diab told the reporters that “there was a complete response” from the president. “All that I can say, I hope everything will be good. We are still in the first two days, and things are going as they should,” he stated.
Upon his nomination, PM Hassan Diab was tasked by President Michel Aoun with forming the country’s next government despite the general rejection from the people and their protest against him. Accordingly, PM Diab addressed the public asking that he be given a chance, promising to form a new government very soon.
Accordingly, he initiated last Saturday the unbinding parliamentary consultations to create the new government. He held meetings with various officials in that regard, discussing the shape of the future government. He said afterward that all legislators had one concern: To get the country out of its “strangling” economic crisis.
Nonetheless, many political parties announced that they won’t be participating in the new government of PM Diab. Among them was the Future Movement of former PM Hariri.
On Tuesday, Saad Hariri broke his silence to reveal that he can’t work with anyone like Gebran Bassil whose conversation is, according to him, “racist and sectarian” and his actions go beyond the constitution. “I will not work again with Gebran Bassil unless he moderates [his policies],” he stated.
Via The Daily Star / Ahmad Azakir
He also shared that the Future Movement party would not be represented in any new government formed by PM-designate Hassan Diab. He indicated, for the first time, that his party would not give such a government a vote of confidence in parliament.
