Report: Bids to Calm PSP-FPM Rhetoric

Several efforts have reportedly been made to suppress a new political row between Lebanon’s political parties, this time between the Progressive Socialist Party and the Free Patriotic Movement, reports said Sunday.

“Sources involved in the formation of the new government,” reportedly told pan-Arab al-Hayat daily that some ministers have made “intensive contacts” with PSP, FPM and Mustaqbal officials in a bid to “de-escalate growing tension on a number of files, most notably the disagreements as per their shares and representation in the upcoming Cabinet.”

They said senior political sources of the Mustaqbal Movement have made the contacts with FPM and PSP officials.

On Friday, Druze leader and PSP head Walid Jumblat said the tenure of President Michel Aoun (FPM founder) has been a "failure.”

His tweet is linked to the latest row over Syrian refugees and the calls for returning them to their country, as well to Aoun’s disapproval of Jumblat’s demand to allocate the whole Druze share in the Cabinet for the PSP, which distances Druze MP Talal Arslan --of the FPM’s Strong Lebanon bloc-- from the equation.

FPM ministers were quick to snap back at Jumblat. Caretaker Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil lashed at him saying “the Lebanese are witnesses to your failure and corruption in all the files you handled.”

FPM Caretaker Justice Salim Jreissati described Jumblat’s comments on Saturday as “suspicious” in terms of timing after his return from Saudi Arabia.