Aoun-Hariri’s 'war of words' casts gloom on Cabinet formation
Hussein Dakroub
BEIRUT: President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri Monday engaged in a “war of words,” reflecting tensions between them and a widening gap over the makeup of a new government badly needed to enact reforms and rescue Lebanon’s crumbling economy.
The tensions between Aoun and Hariri, less than a week after the premier-designate submitted a draft Cabinet lineup to the president, and a raging juidicial row sparked by a prosecutor’s charges filed against caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab and three former ministers for negligence in the Beirut Port explosion, have dashed hopes for the formation of a new government ahead of a new visit to Lebanon by French President Emmanuel Macron next week.