Reports: Salam to Announce 14-Member Cabinet Next Week

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Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam is planning to form a 14-member cabinet to avoid the demands of the March 8 alliance to get a veto power in a government made up of 24 ministers, local dailies reported on Saturday.

An Nahar daily quoted sources following up Salam's consultations with the country's major parties as saying that the talks left him with limited choices, including the 14-member cabinet that should be dubbed as a “public opinion” government.

This choice comes at the expense of a 24-member cabinet that Salam was earlier planning to form. But its birth was struck by the demands of the Hizbullah-led March 8 coalition for veto power.

Salam has rejected granting any party veto power over fears that it would paralyze the government.

An Nahar expected the PM-designate to announce his line-up next Tuesday. It would include: Three Sunnis, three Shiites, one Druze, three Maronites, two Orthodox, a Catholic and an Armenian minister.

But sources close to Salam refused to confirm the report and stressed that consultations with the different parties are not frozen.

“All options are on the table,” they said.

As Safir daily also quoted sources as saying that a plan to announce a cabinet of 14 to 16 members would be supported by the centrists – President Michel Suleiman and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat.

The reports did not give details on the shares of the centrists and the two rival camps of March 8 and March 14 and whether he would announce a fait accompli cabinet.

Jumblat has repeatedly warned against this option, saying he would only participate in a national unity cabinet.

Comments 8
Missing love4lebanon 11 May 2013, 13:22

To hell with M14& M8. We want to live .

Default-user-icon Abyad (Guest) 11 May 2013, 14:21

Sorry why do the Sunnis get the same share as the Shiities and Maronites? They should get 2 just like the Christian Orthodox. And where is the Alawite minister?

Thumb chrisrushlau 11 May 2013, 19:14

March 8 only got 54.5% of the vote in the last general election. March got an overwhelming 45.6% or something. Look at the cabinet line-up proposed by this "public opinion" stooge: seven Muslims and seven Christians, only three Shias, when Shias by themselves outnumber all other sects put together, and tell me again what equality is preserved by the sectarian system? No, you never told me the first time.

Missing peace 11 May 2013, 19:18

"when Shias by themselves outnumber all other sects put together"
how can you know that as no survey has been done for decades.... on purpose

Missing helicopter 11 May 2013, 21:04

chrisrushlau, every post of yours has to do with Muslim this and Shiite that. Your binary mind see the world as Shiites and non-Shiites, you need some therapy.
I am so glad to have many Shiite friends who think so differently from you.

Missing samiam 11 May 2013, 21:39

so you say the same things over and over again, let me ask you a question? what is M8's vision of the future of Lebanon--is is something like Gaza or something else because the isolation caused by their talking heads is moving in that direction. And the so called orthodox system INCREASES sectarian pressures

I am not saying M14 is the solution--all I am saying is that M8 has demonstrated that it clearly isn't--it had the last cabinet was paralyzed by its own infighting.

Thumb chrisrushlau 11 May 2013, 19:14

March 14 got a whopping 45%.

Missing peace 11 May 2013, 19:15

no i don t wish them "dead". i am not like you who said several times that M14 must be thrown to the sea...

i just have issues with stupidity and people living in denial who will tell you even with evidence under their noses that nothing is true just to suit their idioicy. and YOU are the embodiment of that stupidity....

and i ll be a pain in your a... as long as you say your crap here... just to make things straight.

i am not stressed at all but you are given all the desperate posts you send here to defend your iran friends who are bringing lebanon to war by spitting on the state and never obeying the lebanese laws and constitution, and you little faggot, are the most hypocrit lowlife i have ever seen but i am not surprised coming from a aounist sheep! i pity your stupidity that s all little one neurone brainwashed sheep...