Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc on Sunday issued a sharp-toned statement warning of “a plan to target the Premiership” and “isolate the first position of the Sunni sect in Lebanon,” days after caretaker PM Hassan Diab was charged in the probe into the port blast.
In an unusual statement, the bloc slammed those who have allegedly sought to “sectarianize the catastrophe” of the explosion and “point the fingers at the Sunni sect and its leaders” over their defense of Diab and the Premiership.
“These leaders have risen against a suspicious course that is difficult to isolate from the ongoing political spite and attempts to stage a coup against the national accord format,” the bloc added.
“Yes, there is a plan to target the Premiership post — a revenge plan against the Taef Accord which achieved real partnership in power and ended an era of monopolization and unilateralism,” Mustaqbal said, vowing that it shall not allow such a plan to pass.
In an apparent jab at President Michel Aoun and his political movement, the bloc said the plan “evokes the coup-like rhetoric of the late 1980s to impose it on political and national life.”
“Yes, there is a plot to contain and isolate the first position of the Sunni sect in Lebanon, whether through intimidation and charges against the prime minister in the port case or through intimidation against the political leaders who assumed the PM post over the past 10 years,” Mustaqbal added, noting that the lead investigator into the case, Judge Fadi Sawan, has lodged a memo with parliament in which he accused former premiers of suspected responsibility.
“They allow themselves to defend their positions, sects, jobs and components, and they also allow themselves to paralyze the country for years and years, without caring for the financial losses and social and economic repercussions, in order to allow the person who is the strongest in his sect to reach the presidency,” the bloc said.
It also blasted Aoun’s camp for “impeding the formation of governments for the sake of the son-in-law (Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil), or under the excuse of imposing standards that allow the leaders of the sects to name ministers, choose portfolios and cling to the one-third veto power.”
Also in a jab at Aoun and his camp, Mustaqbal added: “They don’t hesitate to rally supporters outside the gates of the presidential palace to protect the position of the presidency and put red lines in the face of peaceful popular protests.”
“They have only labeled one thing as sectarian protection, which is the defense of the premiership position, turning the judicial charges against it into a chance to target several ex-PMs at once,” the bloc went on to say.
“They do not resemble the destroyed, afflicted and burdened houses of Beirut in anything, or else they would have stopped impeding the government’s formation and would have agreed to the PM-designate’s line-up which rises above partisan shares and nominates itself to rescue Beirut from the claws of destruction and ruin,” Mustaqbal said.