Lebanese Cabinet prospects dwindling

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 8 (UPI) -- The opposition movement in Lebanon will move with a unified stance in its negative response to the proposed new government, Hezbollah says.

Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri presented his Cabinet lineup to President Michel Suleiman based on a power-sharing agreement reached with opposition lawmakers earlier this year.

That agreement gives 15 ministers to Hariri's March 14 slate, 10 ministers to the opposition March 8 coalition and five to allies of Suleiman.

Opposition leaders, including Hezbollah, complained Hariri went forward without their consent, Hezbollah's al-Manar network reports.

"I don't think that the method employed today takes Lebanon out of the government formation crisis," said Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. "On the contrary, it further complicates the problem."

Hezbollah singled out a failure to appoint caretaker Telecommunications Minister Gebran Bassil to another term as a cause for concern. Bassil was not re-elected in the June parliamentary elections, though Nasrallah said his exclusion from the next Cabinet was "suspicious."

Hariri maintained he was within his constitutional right to move forward with his Cabinet proposal, adding he would now wait for Suleiman's response, Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper reports.

Michel Aoun, the leader of the opposition Free Patriotic Movement, called on his lawmakers to withdraw their Cabinet nominations in response.