Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Saturday that the government formation crisis has grown bigger, while contradictions emerged in the positions of Hezbollah concerning Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri.
Sources close to the Shiite party said Saturday there was no substitute to Hariri, but at the same time, they asserted their attachment to the representation of the March 8 Sunni deputies in the next government.
Hariri’s sources described Hezbollah’s position as contradictory, offering an opinion and its opposite.
The sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that Hezbollah was trying to change Hariri’s positions and at the same time, impose on him the party’s own conditions.
“Hariri would not bow to pressures,” they said.
Separately, speaking to a delegation of participants in the annual "Independence Day Race", who ran from Rashaya Castle to the Presidential Palace in Baabda, Aoun recalled the story of Solomon when two women came to him with a child, each claiming to be the mother...and when King Solomon ordered the child to be cut in half, the real mother cried out to him to spare his life and give the child to the other woman, at which instant Solomon knew who the real mother was.
"Today, we wish to know who Lebanon's mother really is in order to give it to her," said Aoun, adding, "I shall suffice with that brief statement.”
For his part, head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, MP Mohammed Raad renewed on Saturday the party’s support to the demand of the six Sunni March 8 deputies to be represented in the next cabinet.
In return, head of the Phalange Party Sami Gemayel reiterated his proposal to form a government of specialists at this stage, while the conflicting parties resolve their problems calmly and agree on their points of dispute through dialogue at the Parliament House.
"Lebanon needs a government that will play its role, address its problems, and save the people from the economic and social disaster we are facing today," Gemayel said.