Amid the ruins of a collapsing state, "Hezbollah" stands on the brink of vacancy, observing the passage of presidential candidates to ensure the exclusion of sovereign and rescue-oriented individuals, waiting for the moment of external settlement that would allow it to send a candidate "who protects its back" to the Baabda Palace after agreeing to the terms of submission concerning the "Resistance and its weapons." This is based on the premise that "we have moved past the stage of questioning whether we want resistance in Lebanon or not; we are now in a stage where it is said that resistance has become one of the pillars of Lebanon that no one can shake," according to the words of Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naeem Qassem, who also addressed anyone opposing this premise by saying, "If they can shake this resistance, let them do so, but we see they will be the ones shaken and will not be able to shake the resistance."
In parallel with the presidential escalation, the "Shiite duo" moves along a parallel line to exacerbate governmental disputes behind the scenes for calculations related to the ongoing confrontation with the Maronite Patriarchate. This is linked to the "duo's" role as the spearhead in obstructing the election of a president in the parliamentary council and marginalizing the "Christian president" in the national equation. From this perspective, observers interpreted the call by caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati for the cabinet to convene today as a message carrying the "duo's" fingerprint against messages from Bkerki and the Christian forces calling for an end to the vacancy. Meanwhile, the head of the "Free Patriotic Movement" found in this invitation a means to reclaim his sinking political and presidential vessels, quickly resorting to heavy artillery to bombard Mikati and, behind him, Speaker Nabih Berri.
Amidst the dispute over the powers of "caretaker governance" during the presidential vacancy, Mikati exposed the "governmental bargaining" made with him by Berri when forming the current government. Politically, it was noted that recent events on the governmental dispute front revealed that "Mikati granted Basil 'the blocking third' in the Cabinet in exchange for securing the signature of former President Michel Aoun on the formation decrees at the time." This has been regarded as validated by the statement issued by the nine ministers, which confirmed the veracity of this bargain, effectively undermining their ongoing denials throughout Aoun’s tenure.
In the context of the governmental issue that intensified over the weekend, former President Michel Aoun initiated a war of statements with the caretaker Prime Minister on the eve of the scheduled cabinet session today, claiming that Mikati is attempting to "monopolize power and impose his will on the Lebanese against the provisions of the constitution and customary norms," urging ministers in the caretaker government to "take a unified stance" against the session's convening due to the threats posed by Mikati's move "to the political stability in the country." Subsequently, a statement was released on behalf of the ministers Abdullah Bou Habib, Henry Khoury, Maurice Slim, Amin Salam, Hector Hajar, Walid Fayad, Walid Nassar, George Boucheikian, and Issam Sharafeddine, urging Mikati to retract the call for the cabinet meeting. Additionally, both Salam and Nassar issued separate statements stressing their boycott of today's session if the invitation to convene was not withdrawn.
While the statement from the "blocking third" ministers expressed their surprise at the call for a "session of the cabinet with a vague and confusing agenda," governmental sources revealed that they had received information from three of the nine ministers stating that they were indeed "surprised by the issuance of a statement in their names requesting the session not to take place while they were on the verge of participating and had prepared the files related to their ministries to present to the cabinet." According to the same sources, it became clear that the statement was prepared, drafted, and circulated to the media by the leadership of the "Free Patriotic Movement" without informing all of the ministers mentioned in it about its content in advance.
As a result, governmental sources confirmed that Mikati was, until last night, insisting on holding the cabinet meeting as scheduled today, "and will enter the council chamber at eleven o'clock to preside over the session, holding accountable anyone among the ministers who boycotts it before the public," adding that "if a legal quorum is not achieved for the cabinet's convening, the session may turn into a mere consultative governmental meeting with those present."
