The head of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Gebran Bassil, recorded a regular intervention at the conclusion of the government accountability session in the House of Representatives, objecting to the way the session was managed and the distribution of speaking time between the loyalists and the opposition, in addition to not receiving decisive answers regarding the “framework agreement” and the security annex, demanding his right to clarify his parliamentary bloc’s position on the issue of the motion of confidence in the government following the response provided by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
At the beginning of his speech, Bassil relied on Article 137 of the bylaws of the House of Representatives, addressing Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri by saying that the nature of these sessions requires that they be allocated to holding the government accountable on the part of the opposition, and not turned into a space for “pro-government courtesy.” He explained that the session extended for about 9 hours and 10 minutes, of which the loyalists occupied about 8 hours and 30 minutes to 8 hours and 40 minutes, compared to only about 30 minutes for the opposition, asking about the standards that give the speech to 59 representatives and suffice with one word for the “only opposition bloc,” regardless of its parliamentary size.
On a second point based on Articles 124, 126, and 131, Bassil indicated that his bloc had submitted an official question about a week ago through the Council Presidency regarding the “Framework Agreement” and the security annex, pointing out that the established principles stipulate waiting for the government’s response within the legal time limit, and in the event of no response, the questioning request will be moved on. While Berri explained that the general discussion differs from the interrogation, with the possibility of allocating a session for the latter in accordance with the rules, Bassil revealed that the bloc has 28 interrogations, and that failure to respond to the “framework agreement” question may push towards submitting interrogation No. 29.
Regarding the bloc’s position on confidence, Bassil adhered to Article 138 to confirm his right to explain the reasons for requesting a vote of confidence or abstaining from it, indicating that he waited for the Prime Minister’s answers to know his final position. He recalled a previous experience when he was told inside the hall: “What have you done to yourself, Gibran?” When requesting a vote of confidence, he explained that the goal was to prevent dual positions among those who participate in government and quotas and then disavow the decisions, stressing that participation in government requires bearing responsibility for both negatives and positives.
Bassil criticized the content of the response provided by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, stressing that his observations were focused on the nature of the answers and numbers provided, which he considered included “fallacies” and did not provide satisfactory answers to the bloc’s questions, and were not directed against the person of the Prime Minister.
This intervention came at the end of the general discussion session held by the House of Representatives on September 15 and 16, after its date was modified by a decision of President Nabih Berri, which witnessed, from the beginning, objections from Bassil to setting the time for interventions to 5 minutes, and a procedural debate about the mechanism for organizing speech. In addition to the “Framework Agreement” file and the security annex, the MPs’ discussions were dominated by war and weapons files, in addition to economic, financial, and service issues.
