Report: Salam Preparing for Caretaker Government Situation

The cabinet today will hold its last meeting as a government carrying out the duties of a president in the absence of a head of state, as Prime Minister Tammam Salam starts preparations to leave his office at the Grand Serail with the expected election of a new president next Monday, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Thursday.

The government which has been carrying out the tasks of the president because of the vaccum at the post, will become a caretaker cabinet Monday afternoon, as soon as the parliament elects a new head of state and the newly elected president reads his oaths, added the daily.

According to the constitutional provisions, the cabinet shall be considered resigned immediately after the election of a new president and after the closing minutes of the parliament's electoral session.

As usual, it will announced in a statement issued by President of the Republic after moving to the presidential palace. Based on the constitutional articles, he will ask the government to conduct the business before embarking on the arrangements necessary for the binding parliamentary consultations with the blocs and resigned MPS which will take place at the presidential palace to decide who will form the government, added the newspaper.

Head of the change and Reform bloc MP Michel Aoun is tipped to become president during a parliamentary session scheduled on Monday after al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri formally endorsed him.

Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum.

Hariri had launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah.

The supporters of Aoun's nomination have argued that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community