Mustaqbal Slams Bassil's 'Obstacles' and 'Sectarian Standards'

Al-Mustaqbal Movement said Sunday that PM-designate Saad Hariri has already presented the line-up of a reformist cabinet to President Michel Aoun, slamming what it called Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil’s “obstacles” and “sectarian and racist standards.”

“The Movement leaves it to the Lebanese people to believe or not believe (ex-)Minister Bassil, seeing as we as a Movement will not engage in political polemics that will not bring the country an anti-coronavirus vaccine nor will return the economic cycle to its right track nor will rebuild Beirut and compensate those affected by the port blast,” al-Mustaqbal said in a statement.

The statement comes in response to remarks voiced by Bassil in a televised address earlier in the day.

“The government is ready and (its line-up) is waiting with the President,” al-Mustaqbal said, adding that such a government “will be a mission government that undertakes the needed reforms according to the French initiative and not according to the sectarian and racist Bassilist standards.”

“This is what concerns us and not anything else, no matter how much they get creative in creating obstacles and producing controversial issues,” the Movement added.

Bassil had earlier in the day accused Hariri on insisting on a “government of specialists” in order to “marginalize and eliminate” Aoun, the FPM and Lebanon’s Christians.

“There is no expertise nor standards nor rules in what is being proposed,” Bassil added, noting that Hariri has given the Shiite and Druze communities what they want.

“We do not entrust Hariri alone with reform and to them this government is aimed at seizing control of the country and returning us to the pre-2005 era,” he charged.