Hezbollah’s meteoric rise through in Lebanon’s democracy continues unabated, with Hezbollah now wielding more influence than ever before.
Today, Hezbollah are responsible for Lebanon’s Energy and Water affairs. How much longer until they form the majority of the cabinet?
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050720-025529-7462r
BEIRUT – **Lebanon’s new Prime Minister Fouad Siniora unveiled his cabinet on July 19 which includes for the first time a member of the Shia Muslim militant group Hizbullah, regarded as terrorist by Washington. **
Siniora’s cabinet, which was approved by President Emile Lahoud after three previous draft line-ups had been rejected, is the first elected government since Syria ended its three-decade military presence in April.
“It is a coherent team … chosen to overcome the challenges confronting Lebanon,” Siniora told reporters, saying he was proud to have Hizbullah in his cabinet.
“It is excellent that Hizbullah is in the government … It has a strong popular base and must be represented.”
Siniora, a 62-year-old former finance minister who was a close ally of slain ex-premier Rafiq Hariri, also pledged that his new government would do everything it could to improve relations with neighboring Syria.
Ties with Damascus have taken a turn for the worse since Syria’s troop pullout and the May-June elections, which gave anti-Syrian groups a majority in parliament for the first time since the 1975-1990 civil war.
Siniora said that after his cabinet receives a vote of confidence from parliament he will travel to Syria “smooth over differences” with Damascus.
He also called on the Arab League to aid in that, particularly in helping to break the bottleneck in cross-border traffic since the Syrian withdrawal, created by more stringent Syrian checks at the frontier, which has been causing economic hardship in Lebanon.
Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa called on Sunday for “political entente” between Damascus and Beirut.
The prime minister-designate has pledged to try to rebuild national unity shaken by the February assassination of Hariri, and to embark on sweeping reforms to revive the debt-laden economy.
Since his nomination at the end of June, Siniora had been scrambling to form a government in the face of the mounting political and economic tensions with Damascus, which has dominated Lebanon since the end of the civil war.
Washington and Paris, the sponsors of UN Resolution 1559 calling for Syria’s withdrawal and Hizbullah’s disarmament, voiced concern over the delay in setting up a new government.
After failing to form a government of national unity and then a cabinet of technocrats, Siniora said on Friday he intended to form a government from a broad spectrum of parties including the pro-Syrian Hizbullah-Amal alliance.
Hizbullah representative Mohammed Fneish becomes energy minister in the new government while Shia independent Fawzi Salukh becomes foreign minister.
Two of the new ministers, however, are technocrats, and occupy key posts. Finance minister Jihad Qazaour, formerly worked for the United Nations Development Program and economy minister Sami Haddad was with the World Bank’s International Finance Corp.
The Shia militia, which continues to be involved in sporadic clashes with Israel on the tense border, exclusively patrols the formerly Israeli-occupied south.
Its participation in government is likely to pose a problem for the international community, which is demanding that Hizbullah’s militia - regarded in Lebanon as a legitimate resistance to Israel - give up their weapons.
The government will be led by members of Siniora’s main opposition bloc - led by Hariri’s son Saad - which has majority in the 128-member parliament.
The Hizbullah-Amal alliance has some 30 MPs.
The UN envoy charged with overseeing implementation of last September’s UN Security Council resolution requiring Hizbullah’s disarmament already commented on the apparent contradiction between the militant group’s sitting in an elected government and maintaining an active military wing.
“Remaining as a militia when they are a party in government might look a bit odd,” Terje Roed-Larsen was quoted as saying by the Lebanese press after briefing EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.
The new government does not include the alliance of former exiled Christian MP Michel Aoun, which has 21 MPs. But it does include some allies of the pro-Syrian president, whose departure is still sought by some leaders after his office was extended by a controversial Damascus-inspired constitutional amendment last autumn.
Charles Rizk, a former information minister, becomes minister of justice, a sensitive position as the new government considers the recommendations of a UN investigation into Hariri senior’s murder. Elias Murr, himself target of a failed assassination bid last week, remains defence minister.
Siniora, a Sunni Muslim, was the faithful right-hand man in both business and politics of Rafiq Hariri. He oversaw Hariri’s huge Arab banking interests and also ran the nation’s finances in all five of the governments the late tycoon headed between 1992 and 2004.
**WASHINGTON - US State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said on July 19 that the US would reject any contacts with new energy and water resources minister and Hizbullah representative to the cabinet, Mohammed Fneich. “To the extent that there were members of Hizbullah, active members of a foreign terrorist organization that are present in the government, our ability to deal with those individuals is circumscribed by law,” said Ereli. **