Miqati Says Majority is Not Santa Claus
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Prime Minister Najib Miqati mocked the March 14 opposition alliance for thinking that the parliamentary majority is “Santa Claus” and would present the government's resignation as a gift.
In remarks to As Safir daily published Monday, Miqati said his government has succeeded in thwarting several plots aimed at targeting Lebanon's stability despite its inability “to mark big scores due to this difficult stage.”
“The cabinet was able to guarantee a minimum level of internal stability amid the high level of regional tension,” he said.
“Does the March 14 team believe that the current majority is Santa Claus and distributes political gifts?” Miqati wondered. “Would it have accepted such a resignation had it been in power?”
But March 14 MP Marwan Hamadeh snapped back, telling Future TV: “We know that he (Miqati) is not Santa Claus given the difficult living conditions (of the Lebanese), the demands of the public sector and the failure of the government to approve the wages scale.”
The opposition has been calling for the cabinet's resignation since the Oct. 19 assassination of Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau chief Wissam al-Hasan.
Al-Hasan was killed in Beirut's Ashrafiyeh district in a car bomb blast which the March 14 alliance blamed on the government.
Miqati reiterated that he has advocated an “integrated process” that would include an agreement on an electoral draft-law and its adoption by the parliament in parallel with the formation of a neutral cabinet that would oversee the 2013 polls.
According to his proposal, the members of such a government would not be candidates for the parliamentary elections.
He said it was a shame to hold the parliamentary elections in 2013 based on the winner-takes-all system of the 1960 law, which also considers the qada an electoral district.
According to Miqati, the law has become obsolete.
The government has approved a law that divides Lebanon into 13 districts and is based on proportional representation but parliament has so far failed to agree on it or on other electoral draft-laws.
The prime minister also hoped that the elections would lead to the formation of a balancing parliamentary bloc of centrists that would be able to limit the tense divisions between the March 8 majority alliance and the opposition.
17 December 2012, 06:17
13
Your plan is to hold 2013 elections under an election law that guarantees you a win, or never resign, either way, you cronies will remain in a power.
17 December 2012, 06:28
19
this is the true face of this sold out traitor friend of bashar.
history will not forgive his actions.
17 December 2012, 07:00
18
Hizballah chief is "Santa Claus" for giving you the gift of governing. The problem is this gift cost you what was left of your dignity - if you had any - and made a slave to your master ever since.
Your next gift from the real Santa Claus will be the fall of Assad and may be then you are able to free yourself from your Sayed - Hassan!
17 December 2012, 09:41
00
... You are no Santa Claus and neither is your pal Ali baba Nasrallah or the senile military in Rabieh... You did not do us any favors... you hijacked the country and drove it's economy into the ground... thanks fo nothing...
17 December 2012, 10:14
14
M8 still feels that it has a role to play in the protection of the Al Assad regime and philosophy. It still feels that something could be salvaged after all. If Bachar falls as expected within the next few months, I simply wonder what and how M8 would be able to add up its contingencies and strategies. M8 is definitely now living in a state of denial, the denial of irreversible events in the region and the world. We Lebanese would most probably not get our version of an Arab Spring since we invented it back in 2005 and opened the yes of the Arab world into how to do it, but without any doubt, the total demise of Al Assad and his brutal regime will shake our system to the very bone-marrow. 2013 is going to be a very interesting year. If you're planning to buy real estate in Lebanon, now's the time.
