March 14 Throws Ball in Berri’s Court, Flexing Muscles Ahead of Parliamentary Session

The March 14 opposition forces threw the ball of the dispute on the extra-budgetary spending in Speaker Nabih Berri’s court on Friday, saying he should resolve their differences with the March 8 coalition to avert a clash during a parliamentary session scheduled to be held on Monday.

During a press conference he held on Friday, al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc leader MP Fouad Saniora reiterated that an urgent draft-law proposed by MPs Jamal al-Jarrah and Ghazi Youssef is the only solution to resolve the dispute on the extra-budgetary spending made by different governments since 2006.

Parliament has so far a $5.9 billion bill on its agenda to legitimize the spending made by Premier Najib Miqati’s cabinet in 2011. The March 14 forces and mainly al-Mustaqbal are asking for a comprehensive solution to the $22 billion extra-budgetary spending.

The dispute between the March 8 majority and the opposition erupted last week when March 14 lawmakers walked out of parliament to protest the proposal of the bill that would legitimize the Miqati cabinet’s spending.

The opposition is conditioning its approval of the bill to a comprehensive settlement of the $11 billion spent by the governments of ex-PMs Saniora and Saad Hariri between 2006 and 2009, the $5 billion spending of Hariri’s national unity cabinet in 2010 and the $5.9 billion spent in 2011.

Saniora also slammed the Change and Reform bloc without naming it over its accusations that the $11 billion was riddled with embezzlement.

Finance Minister Mohammed Safadi’s confirmation that all the spending is documented is proof that the accusations about lack of documentation are not true, the Mustaqbal bloc leader said.

“Parliament should study and approve draft laws of the five state budgets referred to it and the cabinet should refer the 2011-2012 budget to the legislature,” he said.

“Our draft-law marks a true solution to the spending,” dispute, he added.

MPs Butros Harb and George Adwan who spoke after Saniora said Berri should annex the draft-law proposed by al-Jarrah and Youssef to the $5.9 billion referred to parliament by the cabinet, warning the opposition would boycott Monday’s legislative session if he fails to do so.

Addressing Berri, Harb said: “We won’t be subjected to dictatorship.”

As for Adwan, he also slammed the March 8 forces, saying “some insist on scoring fake victories at the expense of the country’s stability.”

“We won’t attend any session that doesn’t abide by the legal standards and doesn’t preserve the political and security stability of the country,” he said.

The three MPs stressed that the opposition was not seeking to escape the alleged corruption claims, saying the proposed draft-law is not a substitute to the study of accounts.

Despite their efforts to pressure Berri into finding a comprehensive solution to the spending, parliamentary sources expressed optimism about resolving the dispute ahead of the session, saying the speaker has a roadmap which they described as “a technical-political way out” of the crisis.