Bassil declares 'positive opposition', accuses Salam of misrepresenting Christians

Nahar Net

12-02-2025

by Naharnet Newsdesk 12 February 2025, 13:12
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has announced that the FPM will practice 'positive opposition' in the face of the new government, noting that it will follow up on a number of files it had 'struggled' for.
Wishing success for the new ministers, Bassil lamented that the FPM 'faced an internal and external siege' that 'prevented it from implementing' its plans during Michel Aoun's presidential term.
'It paid the price for preserving national unity and refraining from plunging the country into civil war,' Bassil said.
Bassil also accused Prime Minister Nawaf Salam of 'selectivity' in picking the ministers of the new government and of misrepresenting Christians in the cabinet line-up.
'The Shiite Duo named the Shiite ministers, the Progressive Socialist Party named the Druze ministers and the PM named the Sunni ministers, although the representative Christian forces were excluded … As for Christians, the Lebanese Forces named one or at most two ministers, the Tashnag Party named one partisan minister, the Kataeb Party named one minister after an agreement, while four out of the eight remaining Christians ministers were named by the premier,' Bassil decried.
The FPM chief also objected against the nature of the ministerial portfolios that were allocated to Christians.
'There was a bad distribution of portfolios in a manner that reflected great injustice against Christians,' Bassil said, adding that 'Muslims obtained five medium-caliber portfolios compared to one given to Christians, whereas Christians got five light-caliber portfolios compared to one alloted to Muslims.'
'Shiites named politicians or politicized ministers, Druze named their people and the premier named politicians and politicized figures, whereas Christians were prohibited from naming a single minister suspected of having a political belonging, except for one that went to Tashnag with the aim of political harm,' the FPM chief added.