Should FPM participate in the new government ?

[Anny]

Originally Posted by Revolution1989

Oppose and focus on 2 things: building the party and exposing day and night all the corruption and the fraud...
At the end of the day, we need to make sure we let the Lebanese who voted for M14 know what they did (in French the saying goes: "leur mettre le nez dans leur caca")...
I would hope FPM becomes a large mirror, showing the Lebanese society its true image...

Thats what we should work more on and give support to christians areas where we won with the social work we can do there like Hariri played in Saida by building roads and offering jobs. We should work to focus on what we can build in our community to show them (those M14 christians) that we will steal their votes next time because we are building christians rights and not destroying them like their doing and that specially in Bekaa al Gharbé where christians are loosing very much their right. Look just in Saghbine where Robert Ghanem is a christian leader in M14 and he is offering barghash to the Saghbinees.

[Chief]

Originally Posted by superduper703

The electoral battle wasn't about reform, despite what FPM tried to portray. Bassil didn't lose because Zahra was better. He lost, because March14 were able to convince the population that the fight was between Lebanon and a Syro-Iranian agenda.

whatever were the reasons, you have to excuse me but i dont see any light in the tunnel anymore. Too bad we are doomed forever.

[LebanonUSA]

We MUST not be in the next government. Lebanon will fail miserably over the course of the next four years and we don't need to be a part of it. The people have spoken, so let them bear the consequence of their actions.

We all know that the world economy is in shambles. How is it that a poor, bankrupt country like Lebanon is seeing economic growth? Is it not because of the millions of Riyals being dumped into Lebanon to support M14? Well guess what, now that the elections are over, the millions are going to stop pouring in, and the country is going into a recession that God knows how bad is going to be. The 40,000 Lebanese returning from Dubai are not going to be sending Lebanon any money, and they're returning to Lebanon without any job opportunity. The other immigrants in USA, Canada and Europe are not able to send as much money as they were sending in years past because of the bad situation these countries are in as well. Hariri Corp. will probably create a Paris 5 or Paris 6 (sorry, there's been so many of those useless Parises I lost count) which will end up with Lebanon borrowing more increasing the public debt to over $75,000,000,000.

Tell me again, why would we want to be a part of this train wreck?

[unitedlb]

In an ideal world and in a 30-member cabinet, the C&R block would get 6 ministers (27/128 * 100 = 21%) while HA/Amal would get the 6 Shiite ministers.

If this were to happen, our 6 ministers could be as follows:

1 Maronite to Franjiyye
1 Melkite to Skaff
1 Armenian Orthodox to Tashnak
The three for FPM could be 2 Maronite seats and 1 Orthodox.
I say keep Gebrab Bassil in telecommunications to try and win Batroun back in 2013. Ziad Abs for the Orthodox seat rather than Abou Jamra. Ziad is young I believe will be a great assett to FPM. He is also from Ashrafiyye and we can use this to win Ashrafiyye in 2013. The final Maronite seat could stay go to someone like Simon Abi Ramia who turned out to be a great candidate. If we don't want to give ministries to current MPs, we could stick with Mario Aoun or maybe someone like Salim Aoun to continue with the Zahle theme (i.e. Elie Marouni from Kataeb).

Unfortunately, it looks like they don't want to give opposition a blocking 1/3 and might only offer 5 to C&R and 5 to HA/Amal and take a Shiite seat for themselves. Will HA allow this. If so and we agree to join government, we could go with Franjiyye, Skaff, Tashnak, Bassil and Abs.

However, I'm not sure if it is wise to join the government if we don't get a blocking third. We would be legitimising the government, while at the same time not being able to veto any decisions we disagree with.

As an opposition we won 45% of the parliamentary seats. If we fight for this in government, they might deal with the president and throw at us a 12-10-8 option, with them getting 12, us 10 and the president 8. They can argue and say 10 is 45% of 22, while at the same time they can say they are empowering the president by giving him 8. This will mean that we don't have a blocking third+1, although 45% of the non-presidential share. The government formation will be interesting.

I guess if we don't get a blocking 3rd as opposition and 6 ministries as C&R, then we should not be in government. I voted the first option.

[hhhh23]

Having FPM ministers in the next government will give the loyalists a great victim for their own incompetence. If FPM (and opposition) ministers are part of the government (with or without the 1/3), all the blame will be shifted on them.

14 March have been singing day and night that they want to govern and that the opposition is forbidding them from doing so. So, let FPM give them their government and lets see how they govern..ALONE

Meanwhile, FPM can expose things in the parliament (kind of like Najah Wakim in the early 90s), and work on their own party.

[Anny]

Originally Posted by LebanonUSA

We MUST not be in the next government. Lebanon will fail miserably over the course of the next four years and we don't need to be a part of it. The people have spoken, so let them bear the consequence of their actions.

We all know that the world economy is in shambles. How is it that a poor, bankrupt country like Lebanon is seeing economic growth? Is it not because of the millions of Riyals being dumped into Lebanon to support M14? Well guess what, now that the elections are over, the millions are going to stop pouring in, and the country is going into a recession that God knows how bad is going to be. The 40,000 Lebanese returning from Dubai are not going to be sending Lebanon any money, and they're returning to Lebanon without any job opportunity. The other immigrants in USA, Canada and Europe are not able to send as much money as they were sending in years past because of the bad situation these countries are in as well. Hariri Corp. will probably create a Paris 5 or Paris 6 (sorry, there's been so many of those useless Parises I lost count) which will end up with Lebanon borrowing more increasing the public debt to over $75,000,000,000.

Tell me again, why would we want to be a part of this train wreck?

Again, because we dont want that to happen thats why we should start built our own community, **** their governement, we should start our own in it like a governement in a governement, they want to doom us, lets show them that we wont be part of their doomed society

[Revolution1989]

Originally Posted by December Rain

FPM should participate, for the sake of those of those who voted FPM, i think if we get some ministries we will at least be able to accomplish part of our electoral program....

It's not how it works and you know that... The only role we can play is oppose and expose...

We should focus on the next local elections

[Kurt]

Originally Posted by superduper703

I'd like FPM to participate in the government, but without veto power. However, things should be smoothed over before such a move. The rhetoric of FPM ministers against Saniora and the other March 14 ministers in the current government was not healthy. You're either part of a unity government or you're not. You can't have it both ways.

Absolutely and I am personally unopposed to this idea of having real FPM reformers but I wouldn't appreciate someone like gebran bassil to turn a ministry to "dekkan perse" (sorry if I had offended anyone but this is the perception) especially that he is in a "public" position serving "all people" and even if he is doing a good job we should let the people decide that he is or not and not only that the opposition bloc in the parliament should do its job as well. All the ministers must work as a team and not against each others otherwise this wouldn't be constructive. I add that if we can even find technocrats that are qualified to preside the minsitries, I think this would be even better. We need a flawless government but also we must have a strong opposition in the parliament.

[Revolution1989]

Originally Posted by superduper703

Bassil didn't lose because Zahra was better..

Really? I'm surprised...

Originally Posted by superduper703

[...] March14 were able to convince the population that the fight was between Lebanon and a Syro-Iranian agenda.

Seriously, if the "population" believed that then it can believe anything, it can believe that Murr is honest, clean and transparent, that Gea3gea3 is not a criminal, that Hariri is not sectarian, that Joumblatt is really a patriot and not only interested in ruling the mountain...

But in that case, it means that M14 has actually houdini on its side and is able to convince the population about anyhting...

So no point in trying anymore

[unitedlb]

Originally Posted by superduper703

The electoral battle wasn't about reform, despite what FPM tried to portray. Bassil didn't lose because Zahra was better. He lost, because March14 were able to convince the population that the fight was between Lebanon and a Syro-Iranian agenda.

Not only were they able to make many people believe this lie, they also bought a lot of votes. The swing against us due to the people's belief in the lies and the vote-buying is always going to be most effective in the smaller areas where little margins mean big changes, such as Batroun and Koura. That's why we lost in those areas and hence Bassil losing.

The plan was obvious from day 1. Use the unfair 1960 qada law to your advantage, concentrate the buying and the spending in Koura/Batroun and shift 10K Sunnis to Zahle and bang, a parliamentary majority.