Hariri Jr. government gets confidence vote

The newly birthed Hariri government finally gets a vote of confidence to start officially working and implementing its now infamous "governmental statement". For those of you who are new to Lebanese politics, an appointed PM puts together a government that in turn drafts a program or statement that it presents to the parliament in a bid to earn the confidence of the majority or else everything goes back to square one.

So after 3 long days of "debating" the governmental statement, and after a total of 6 sessions, 66 MPs debating and a whopping 26 hours of total "talk" (#'s are the courtesy of Nabih Berri), the government earned its confidence vote with 122 out of 128 voting to grant their confidence to the new government.

4 MPs were missing in action:

• Dorry Chamoun
• Talal Irslan
• Nabil Nqoula
• Hashem Alem El Din

One MP decided to not vote either way:

• Imad El Hout

And one MO voted to not grant confidence:

• Nqoula Fattoush

Imad El Hour's decision to not vote either yes or no was a bit weird, given that he represents Jamaa Islamiya, which to my understanding is part of Hariri's coalition.

The Nqoula Fattoush decision is not that surprising. He is a lone MP representing Zahle, not part or any coalition so to speak, largely his making though. He tried to outmaneuver his fellow March 14 MPs on the Zahle list, but proved to be ineffective and was booted out of the coalition. His vote of no confidence is more so a bitter response of a sore loser rather than a real disagreement over the governmental statement. He will soon regret that decision.

The majority confidence vote is not a shocker in anyway; it is a government of national unity after all. What's shocking the most is the charade these MPs put on for 3 days in a row thinking that any Lebanese citizen with their complete mental capacities will actually believe anything they say.

But then again, this is Lebanon.

BG