Axis of Logic
Finding Clarity in the 21st Century Mediaplex

Lebanon
Hezbollah to name premiership candidate
By HN/AKM
Press TV
Friday, Jan 14, 2011

Lebanese MP Mohammad Raad, the head of
Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc

A Hezbollah MP says the group will name a capable personality to the head of Lebanon's future government after the collapse of the cabinet.

On Thursday, Lebanese lawmaker Mohammad Raad, who heads the Lebanese resistance movement's parliamentary bloc, said the group is to nominate "a personality with a national resistance biography" to the office, Lebanese website Naharnet reported.

The government fell apart on Wednesday, when 10 ministers from the Hezbollah-led March 8 Alliance and one, named by President Michel Sleiman, resigned, depleting more than a third of the cabinet.

Energy Minister Gebran Bassil said the reason for the mass departure had been “obstruction of cabinet, caused by other camps' inability to overcome US pressure,” Press TV reported.

Meanwhile, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday announced that consultations on appointing a new prime minister would begin on Monday.

"Consultations with parliamentarians will begin Monday at noon (1000 GMT)," the state-run National News Agency quoted Berri as saying.

Hezbollah says the United States is trying to forcibly incriminate the movement in the 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former Premier Rafiq Hariri, using the Washington-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) on the incident.

The opposition also blames the US “for crippling Arab efforts for a solution” to the political impasse caused in Lebanon over reports that the court could potentially indict some Hezbollah members, said Mariam Saleh, our correspondent in Beirut.

Saudi Arabia and Syria collaboration to resolve the deadlock fell flat recently after Lebanon's prime minister and the assassinated victim's son, Saad Hariri, refused to respond to the joint efforts and make a compromise at the expense of the US-sponsored STL.

The foreign meddling "wants to politicize everything in favor of Israel," Raad noted.

HN/AKM

Source: Press TV