Reports: Salam to Announce 14-Member Cabinet Next Week
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.
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