Lebanese PM proposes Hezbollah-backed govt

Lebanon's prime minister designate, Fouad Siniora, has proposed to form a mixed cabinet of MPs and unelected figures after he got backing from the Shiite resistance group Hezbollah and its allies, and his own supporters rejected a government solely of technocrats.

Siniora, speaking after a meeting with President Emile Lahoud on Friday, said "such a cabinet, composed of deputies and non-deputies, has received the support of more than 100 deputies, or 78 percent of parliament."

He said he was waiting for the president's response.

The prime minister designate described the fourth proposed lineup since he was selected on June 30 to form a government as a "homogeneous working team qualified to face the political, economic and security challenges facing the country".

"We face a political vacuum and a deterioration of the security situation, as well as various attempts, at home and abroad, to demonstrate that the Lebanese are not capable of governing themselves."

He said his proposed line-up was the "best possible formula for a reformist cabinet."

It also had the "agreement" of Hezbollah and its Shiite ally Amal, although not that of Michel Aoun’s faction.

But experts believe that any role for Hezbollah in the new government could complicate international demands for the disarmament of its military wing, which continues to patrol the formerly Israeli-occupied south, in accordance with a UN Security Council resolution passed last September.

Earlier, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt spoke out strongly against Siniora's previous proposal, only made on Thursday, which called for an entirely non-party government.

"We refuse to discuss a government of technocrats," Jumblatt told the Al-Mostaqbal daily, owned by the family of the bloc's leader Saad Hariri.

"Such a government would not be up to the challenges facing it, particularly getting to grips with security," he said in reference to the spate of bombings that have rocked Lebanon since the February murder of Hariri's father, Rafiq.

He called on the main opposition alliance to use its eight-seat majority in parliament to press ahead with forming a government of its own, regardless of the views of Lahoud.

"If Lahoud rejects it, we will know what to do," he said, referring to calls for the pro-Syria president to stand down.

Hariri has previously stated that he wants to move cautiously on the question of Lahoud's future because of the "sensitivity" of the issue.

The first two plans were rejected by Lahoud and the other main blocs in the 128-seat parliament, the 35-member Shiite alliance and the faction of Aoun, which has 21 MPs.

Representatives of both blocs expressed little enthusiasm for a government of technocrats either.

"Given the pressure which Lebanon is under, the new government must have the credibility to face the challenges," a Hezbollah source told Al-Mostaqbal.

An Aoun aide said: "You can't separate such a government from politics because it's got to take political decisions."

Most Lebanese newspapers agreed with the policians' sentiments.

"Collapse of the idea of a government of technocrats and back to square one," thundered the front-page headline in the mass circulation daily An-Nahar.

"The formula was still-born and it's back to the drawing board for an alternative," said the paper.

However, continuing political instability is unlikely to restore much needed confidence to an economy burdened by a $35 billion national debt built up during reconstruction following the 1975-90 civil war.