The cancellation of the legislative session of the House of Representatives was not a surprising development, although its implications appeared very heavy on the relevant parties and forces involved in the intense political clash that has stripped the presidency of the Council of its control over its proceedings. It is unclear how long this situation could last, with the potential for a legislative paralysis and less than half of the government's productivity.
It was notable that the caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati aggressively criticized those boycotting the legislative sessions, whereas no statement was issued by the Speaker of the Council, Nabih Berri. The focus of the event shifted from the parliament to the financial arena, where it seemed that fortifications were being established for the first time following the end of the term of the former Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, Riad Salameh. These fortifications aim to implement the commitments made by the Acting Governor of the Central Bank, Wassim Mansouri, not to touch the mandatory reserves (or rather what remains of them) at the bank regardless of the implications of this decision.
Yesterday marked a significant test of this commitment through the crisis of power outages on one hand and the clear revelation of external liquidity at the Central Bank on the other. According to "An-Nahar," the new governorship's refusal to meet the demands of the Electricité du Liban company as was previously customary led to the caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati having to pledge to pay 7 million dollars from the special drawing rights for "Prime South" in exchange for the immediate operation of the Zahrani and Deir Ammar plants, after the acting governor Wassim Mansouri refused to use reserve funds for the payment. Following this, "Prime South" began to restart production units. The Prime Minister chaired a financial meeting for this purpose, which included Minister of Finance Youssef Khalil, Mansouri, the Director General of the Ministry of Finance George Maalouly, and Mikati's advisor, former Minister Nicolas Nahas.
