Source: Al-Manar TV, 25-12-2008
A few hours following the "Christmas Message" delivered by the Lebanese Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, read by political sources as a critique for the opposition's way of conduct within the cabinet, the national opposition seemed devoted to clarify things and explain its role in the cabinet as protector of reform.
On Tuesday, Patriarch Sfeir criticized the Lebanese system of governance and violent political rhetoric. "The state is not holding together and government resembles a carriage pulled by two horses, one to the front and the other backwards," Sfeir described the opposition and the loyalty blocs. "Normally around the world parliamentary majority governs, and when defeated, a minority takes over," the Maronite Patriarch said. "Every act that government intends to do is opposed, resisted and thwarted from within cabinet," he complained.
Sfeir's statements were immediately hailed by the so-called March 14 Forces (US backed alliance). A delegation from the so-called "March 14 Secretariat General" quickly landed in Bkirki to "thank" Sfeir, "Lebanon's conscience" according to Future Movement MP Saad Hariri who also visited Bkirki to wish the Patriarch "merry Christmas."
Meanwhile, Telecommunications Minister Gebran Bassil and State Minister Ali Kanso rejected Sfeir's statements in exclusive interviews with Al-Manar. According to Kanso, the Patriarch's accusations for the opposition of obstructing the cabinet's work were unfair. "They are false charges," he went on to say.
For his part, Minister Bassil criticized the accusations launched by Sfeir as well as other political and religious references against the national opposition ministers of obstruction.
Speaking to Al-Manar, Bassil stressed that the opposition ministers refuse to be "perjures" within the cabinet, wondering whether the national-unity government should mean unity around reform or decay. "As national opposition ministers, we have the honor to be the horse which pull the carriage backwards if it was going towards decay," Minister Bassil said proudly.
Minister Bassil found strange that Patriarch Sfeir didn't see any of the "achievements" made by the opposition ministers within their ministries. He reiterated that the opposition ministers were "ministers of participation," stressing that Sfeir's statements would not save the ruling bloc and wouldn't prevent the opposition of assuming its responsibility within the cabinet. "To tell us stay in the cabinet but don't oppose anything is neither possible nor logical," Bassil told Al-Manar.