Lebanon's new national unity government won a vote of confidence in parliament on Tuesday following stormy debates among rival lawmakers on the thorny issue of Hezbollah weapons. The vote will allow the 30-member cabinet - which was formed by Prime Minister Fuad Siniora a month ago under a May power-sharing accord that ended a dangerous political crisis - to finally start work.
"One hundred MPs have given their confidence to the cabinet, five voted against and two abstained," parliament speaker Nabih Berri announced to the assembly, which currently has 127 MPs. MPs from rival factions have locked horns in sharp exchanges over the arsenal of the Shiite militant movement Hezbollah, which insists it has the right to resist Israel.
"Despite some of the sharp criticisms expressed by some of the MPs... we are determined to turn over a new page in our relations," Siniora said in an address before the vote. The confidence motion follows the government's drafting of a policy statement which also insists on "the right of Lebanon, its people, its army and its resistance to liberate its land."
It is the first government to be formed after the crisis between rival factions that degenerated into violence that left 65 dead in May, taking the country to the brink of a new civil war. The Syrian-backed Hezbollah-led opposition, with 11 ministers, has the power of veto in the new cabinet under the May accord between the rival factions that allowed MPs to elect a new president after a six-month vacuum. While the parliament has 128 seats, it has had only 127 sitting members since majority MP Antoine Ghanem was assassinated in a car bombing in October.
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