At a record speed, which may not necessarily reflect a speed in formation, Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati presented to President Michel Aoun the government formation that he deems appropriate in these circumstances, as Mikati announced from Baabda.

He added that time is very important and the options are very narrow, which means that the option he presented may be the most appropriate at this time, especially since the government expected to be formed is limited to a short period of time that ends with the supposed presidential elections on October 31.

While Mikati announced that the President of the Republic requested some time to study the formation before responding to it, the Free Patriotic Movement’s audience anticipated the presidential response and launched a campaign on social media against the proposed formation, warning that the President of the Republic rejected the proposed formation, and this is what we expected yesterday. According to what we mentioned yesterday, the draft that was ready before the consultations, which includes 24 ministers, the largest part of them from the caretaker government, with amendments that take into account, according to its sources, some of the balances produced by the parliamentary elections, in addition to the principle of ministerial rotation. The amendments touched on some portfolios, especially energy, the economy, the displaced and the foreign affairs, whether by changing names or changing their distribution to political parties, with a decisive decision to exclude the Free Patriotic Movement from the energy portfolio and naming an independent name to take over it. As for the portfolio of money left to the Shiite sect, it is up to President Nabih Berri to change or not to change Minister Youssef Khalil.

If Mikati drops, even in form, the hypothesis of an implicit agreement not to form a government and mobilize time until the end of the covenant, then he early throws the ball into the court of the President of the Republic.

On the other hand, there was a lot of talk about a secret meeting that took place in the suburbs last March between a Saudi delegation and Sheikh Naim Qassem to discuss a ceasefire in Yemen. Ambassador Walid al-Bukhari denied in a call that such a meeting had taken place and commented by saying, “The article is an Indian film with poor wording.”