Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil announced Wednesday that all parties can be represented in a 24-member cabinet, noting that only “minor details” are still delaying the line-up.
“We have agreed on the important and essential parts and there is no real reason to delay announcing the cabinet line-up except for some minor details, which might be important for some parties and less important for others,” Bassil said after the weekly meeting of the Change and Reform bloc in Rabieh.
“We want a national unity cabinet that includes everyone, at least the forces that are represented in parliament,” he added.
“We are not rejecting any party and we want the Marada (Movement), the Kataeb (Party), the Syrian Social National Party, the non-Mustaqbal Sunni forces and MP Talal Arslan to be represented, even in a 24-member cabinet,” Bassil emphasized.
He added that the parties have agreed that the new government “will not establish any new norms” and that “no portfolios will be permanently allocated to a certain sect or party.”
“There will be no vetoes. We have not put a veto on anyone and in return we won’t accept vetoes from anyone,” Bassil went on to say.
He noted that Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri is not opposed to the nomination of a Sunni minister by President Michel Aoun and “in return we have accepted that al-Mustaqbal (Movement) be represented by a Christian minister.”
Bassil also urged a new electoral law, emphasizing that “no one wants to keep the 1960 law and we must not allow anyone to keep the 1960 law.”
