Caretaker Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil on Wednesday lauded caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s decision to withdraw his nomination for the PM post, urging him to suggest a “credible and capable” candidate.
“We appreciate the responsible stance that Mr. Prime Minister Saad Hariri took by announcing that he is no longer nominated to head the next government and that he will go to the binding parliamentary consultations tomorrow,” Bassil said in a written statement.
“We see in this stance a positive step, which we hope he will complete by suggesting — in light of his position vis-à-vis the National Pact – a credible and capable figure on whom there can be consensus,” Bassil added.
He said the political parties would then seek an agreement with the PM-designate on “the formation of a government that would enjoy the confidence of the people and the influential parliamentary blocs, in addition to the Arab and international communities.”
Bassil however criticized Hariri for “putting the country and the people in the face of the unknown through his recent resignation.”
The FPM chief also said that Hariri should not have made his choice “in the last moment before the binding parliamentary consultations.”
Hariri, earlier, withdrew his nomination for the PM post and stressed that Thursday’s binding parliamentary consultations to pick a new PM “should not be postponed under any excuse.”
“I have strived to meet their demand for a government of experts, which I saw as the only option to address the serious social and economic crisis our country faces,” Hariri said. “I announce I will not be a candidate to form the next government,” he said in a statement.
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