The Guardians of the Cedars Party issued the following weekly communiqué:

The ongoing government crisis, including demands and conditions that are impossible to meet, the feeding frenzy over ministerial portfolios, and the hindrances to the new President’s term in office, can all be attributed to one thing and one thing only: political indecency.

Everyone knows by now that the race for those portfolios they call “sovereignty” or “service” portfolios has nothing to do with any fervor for Lebanese sovereignty and service to the country and the people as they claim. Rather, it has to do, first and foremost, with electioneering interests and a struggle for power and for positioning by the dueling parties inside the ruling structure, which has thrown the country back to the pre-Doha situation, as though we need to call again on Qatar to come and solve this government crisis.

The danger of this hindrance to the formation of a new government is that it has begun negatively impacting the general conditions in the country and the Lebanese people’s lives in all areas:

1 – It deliberately undermines the Presidency and prevents it from achieving any progress towards entente and reform, and towards building a strong and capable state, as was stated in the President’s oath speech.

2 – It has taken people back into the cycle of anxiety and despair, after the interlude of hope generated by the Doha Agreement, as they had promised themselves an economically successful summer season for vacationing and tourism.

3 – And if the government formation is simmering on low and the political establishment is in no hurry to complete it any time soon, the cost of living on the other hand is seriously burning people’s ability to survive in an environment of dwindling resources, an economy virtually at a standstill, and a scarcity of job opportunities for the young Lebanese. This is not to mention that the Lebanese citizen is the only one in the world on whom the vulture politicians have imposed a system of double taxation and billing for water, electricity and telephone.

The people want the new regime of President Sleiman to take a decisive and tough stance in the face of the political vultures and put an end to their voracious greed before it is too late.

Lebanon, at your service
Abu Arz
June 20, 2008