BEIRUT, Lebanon, June 15 (UPI) -- A Lebanese party is denouncing Prime Minister Najib Mikati's new Cabinet as a front for Hezbollah and the Bashar Assad regime in Syria.
The Future Movement issued a broadside Tuesday, calling the government announced Monday a "facade" for Hezbollah control, The (Beirut) Daily Star reported.
"Experience has taught us that totalitarian parties begin their coup by introducing figures who appear independent, before those parties decide to take power through repression," the statement said.
Mikati has promised his government will honor Lebanon's international obligations, but did not specify how he would cooperate with the United Nations' Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which is investigating former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination in 2005. Hezbollah, widely suspected of the crime, calls the panel a tool of the United States and Israel.
Hezbollah and its allies picked Mikati after they overthrew Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who was cooperating with the probe of his father's murder.
Hezbollah plans to remake Lebanon's internal security forces, whose cooperation the U.N. probe needs.
Future Movement Member of Parliament Ahmad Fatfat said Syria also is looking for an ally against international condemnation of its bloody repression at home.
