Hizbullah MP: Siniora Cabinet `staging coup d`etat against Taif`

Source: Daily Star, 11-1-2007
BEIRUT: A Hizbullah MP accused Prime Minister Fouad Siniora`s government on Wednesday of staging a coup d`etat against the Taif Accord by insisting on convening Cabinet sessions, despite the continued absence of Shiite ministers. The opposition argues that the government lost its legitimacy after the Shiite ministers, representing Lebanon`s largest single sect, quit the Cabinet last November.
Siniora has called for a Cabinet session Friday to discuss more than 150 items. It will be the third session held in the absence of the five Shiite ministers and a sixth aligned with President Emile Lahoud.
"We warn the ruling party and its members, who are violating the sectarian political balance, that they are committing a crime against the country and staging a coup d`etat against the National Pact approved in Taif," Hizbullah MP Mohammad Raad said in a statement. "This behavior can only be explained if Siniora and his group are part of a conspiracy to push the country toward more division."
Raad urged Siniora to suspend Cabinet sessions and heed the opposition`s call to form a national unity government.
Opposition protesters have been camped outside the Grand Serail since December 1 in an attempt to force the government to step down.
The opposition kicked off the first stage of its "Phase 2" campaign Tuesday with a protest called for by the country`s largest union federation outside the Finance Ministry`s Value Added Tax Administration in Adlieh, east of Beirut.
The protest was the first in a series of many promised by the opposition earlier this week.
"The situation will escalate more and more to include blocking roads, burning tires and civil disobedience," opposition leader and former Premier Omar Karami said in comments published Wednesday.
Karami said that the opposition has decided to end this "abnormal situation" and escalate its moves gradually from now until January 20.
Democratic Gathering bloc leader MP Walid Jumblatt met Wednesday with US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman.