Seniora Suffers Double-Barreled Jolt with Rebellious Lahoud, Betrayed Aoun
President Lahoud has vowed to veto any cabinet lineup that does not give him one third of the seats as Premier-Designate Fouad Seniora triggered a clash with Gen. Aoun by expressing unwillingness to take the General's parliamentary allies into the new government.
The double-barreled setback threatens to blow apart Seniora's boast that he has formed the first totally made-in-Lebanon government in three decades. He may hold a meeting with Lahoud at the Baabda palace sometime on Tuesday in an attempt to have the cabinet decreed in the evening or Wednesday morning.
"I shall not sign the decrees of a government in which I am not an essential partner," Lahoud was quoted as saying in a screaming 8-column banner-line across the front-page of Al Bayrak newspaper, his mouthpiece.
"Lahoud insists on his terms and wages the battle for the subversive one-third," screamed a similar headline across Al Balad's page-one, signaling a presidential stance that could leave Lebanon without a government after the May-June elections for a first free-from-Syria Lebanese parliament.
An Nahar said Seniora's cabinet lineup excludes pro-Lahoud Information Minister Charles Rizk and the president's son-in-law Elias Murr from the post of vice premier and defense minister. Seniora contends the constitution does not stipulate for any share in the cabinet for the president.
The strain with Aoun came only a day after the General concluded a 'durable pact' with majority leader Saad Hariri and with Seniora at a visit he made to Hariri's Koreitem mansion on Sunday.
Aoun said after the visit that his Free Patriotic Movement would get the justice and environment portfolios and his parliament ally Elias Skaff and the Armenian Tashnag Party would also be given two more ministries.
But Seniora was reported overnight to have expressed reservation about taking Skaff and the Tashnag into his projected 24-member cabinet. His change of mind prompted Aoun to convene an open-ended emergency meeting of his 21-strong bloc in Parliament to cope with any surprise developments affecting the government.
One particular development other than Seniora's reservation was an agreement by Seniora with Hizbullah and Speaker Berri's Amal Movement to give the foreign ministry to Fawzi Salloukh, 74, a former veteran diplomat who served for 36 years with the foreign corps. The choice was reportedly backed by Saad Hariri's Tayyar Al Mustaqbal
The double-barreled setback threatens to blow apart Seniora's boast that he has formed the first totally made-in-Lebanon government in three decades. He may hold a meeting with Lahoud at the Baabda palace sometime on Tuesday in an attempt to have the cabinet decreed in the evening or Wednesday morning.
"I shall not sign the decrees of a government in which I am not an essential partner," Lahoud was quoted as saying in a screaming 8-column banner-line across the front-page of Al Bayrak newspaper, his mouthpiece.
"Lahoud insists on his terms and wages the battle for the subversive one-third," screamed a similar headline across Al Balad's page-one, signaling a presidential stance that could leave Lebanon without a government after the May-June elections for a first free-from-Syria Lebanese parliament.
An Nahar said Seniora's cabinet lineup excludes pro-Lahoud Information Minister Charles Rizk and the president's son-in-law Elias Murr from the post of vice premier and defense minister. Seniora contends the constitution does not stipulate for any share in the cabinet for the president.
The strain with Aoun came only a day after the General concluded a 'durable pact' with majority leader Saad Hariri and with Seniora at a visit he made to Hariri's Koreitem mansion on Sunday.
Aoun said after the visit that his Free Patriotic Movement would get the justice and environment portfolios and his parliament ally Elias Skaff and the Armenian Tashnag Party would also be given two more ministries.
But Seniora was reported overnight to have expressed reservation about taking Skaff and the Tashnag into his projected 24-member cabinet. His change of mind prompted Aoun to convene an open-ended emergency meeting of his 21-strong bloc in Parliament to cope with any surprise developments affecting the government.
One particular development other than Seniora's reservation was an agreement by Seniora with Hizbullah and Speaker Berri's Amal Movement to give the foreign ministry to Fawzi Salloukh, 74, a former veteran diplomat who served for 36 years with the foreign corps. The choice was reportedly backed by Saad Hariri's Tayyar Al Mustaqbal
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