The Kataeb party on Wednesday criticized Lebanese officials concerned with the government’s formation for taking it lightly and compared the governmental entitlement to a club for players to kill time while waiting for the presidential elections.

“The president's chair inside the presidential palace in Baabda has become the target and the one and only motive for all movements,” read a statement issued by the Kataeb political bureau following its weekly meeting at the party’s headquarters in Saifi.

“Given this scenario, the Kataeb party warns again against considering this perverse logic and sacrificing the crucial ministries and establishment’s role. The country cannot withstand quarrels while its most important elections are just around the corner.  It would define the country and its people’s fate for the upcoming years, none more so borders’ demarcation, negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and stopping the spiral descent of the Lebanese State amid the total absence of any serious solutions,” it said.

The Kataeb political bureau alarmed all parties against the seriousness of this phase, calling upon them to stop distributing ministerial portfolios publically and privately.

It also urged the concerned bodies to aim for a government of competent individuals for they would directly put a clear rescue plan before the present conditions exacerbate. 

“Political failure is not different than failing to manage the Lebanese people's livelihood in this deepened crisis. Amid electricity, water, and bread shortages and the public sector’s open strike, which has crippled the country, Lebanese have become incapable of achieving the merest transactions due to the absence of any serious initiatives to meet the employee’s demands,” it noted. 

“This unfair situation alone is sufficient to decide on swiftly forming a government whose agenda should include an action plan to activate the public administration after updating and clearing it from exploitative employees,” it stated. 

According to the statement, the Kataeb political bureau considered that the case of the Syrian refugees’ camps, and after several events had taken place there, required radical treatment and effective measures to repatriate refugees, particularly to the safe regions in Syria.

The bureau stressed that it was necessary to proceed with the said case until its completion and to de-link refugees’ repatriation from the final political compromise related to Syria or the reconstruction condition and funding thereof. 

The Kataeb party called upon the United Nations to look at the case from a different perspective taking into consideration Lebanon’s capacity to withstand refugees amid the deep crisis the country is grappling with for it cannot accommodate anymore more than 1.5 million refugees on its land.