Culture Minister Gabi Layoun – who represents MP Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc – said that the cabinet’s Wednesday meeting, which is expected to tackle the funding of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), will take place if his bloc’s “demands are met.”
“The cabinet will only convene today if our demands for reforms are met,” Layoun said in a reference to the possibility that his allies in the March 8 coalition will boycott the government session and thus fail to secure quorum.
He told the Voice of Lebanon (100.5) radio station Prime Minister Najib Mikati informed his bloc “through the media” that he will step down if the government does not provide the annual share of funding to the STL.
“We told the premier to excuse us, because the standing of the cabinet does not depend on the funding issue.”
“We told the premier to excuse us, because the standing of the cabinet does not depend on the funding issue.”
Layoun added, “We will see how serious [Mikati will be] in tackling our demands… and we might attend the cabinet meeting today, but we will wait.”
Aoun’s ministers boycotted last Friday’s cabinet session, and demanded the government to carry out several projects that are at a stalemate after Mikati threatened to resign.
The Lebanese government is dominated by Hezbollah and its allies, which are insisting that the country cease all cooperation with the STL, set up in the wake of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s 2005 murder.
The UN-backed STL has charged four Hezbollah operatives in connection with the assassination.
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