Lebanon cabinet wins parliament confidence vote
BEIRUT (AFP)
Lebanon's new national unity government won a vote of confidence in parliament on Tuesday following a stormy debate among lawmakers on the thorny issue of Hezbollah weapons.
The vote will allow the 30-member cabinet -- which was formed by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora a month ago under a May power-sharing accord that ended a protracted political crisis -- to finally start work.
"One hundred MPs have given their confidence to the cabinet, five voted against and two abstained," parliament speaker Nabih Berri announced.
The vote follows the government's drafting of a policy statement which also insists on "the right of Lebanon, its people, its army and its resistance to liberate its land."
The ruling majority in parliament, backed by the West and most Sunni-led Arab states, nevertheless insists on the disarmament of Shiite militia Hezbollah, something vehemently rejected by the group and its political allies.
It is the first government to be formed after the crisis between rival factions that degenerated into violence that left 65 dead in May, taking the country to the brink of a new civil war.
Controversy over Hezbollah's weapons intensified after its guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid in July 2006 that sparked a 34-day war that devastated Lebanon.
The Syrian-backed Hezbollah-led opposition, with 11 ministers, has the power of veto in the new cabinet under the May accord between the rival factions that allowed MPs to elect a new president after a six-month vacuum.
The government's policy statement says the people of Lebanon have to right to reclaim "Israeli-occupied" land including the Shebaa Farms and the divided border village of Ghajar.
Israel says the government gave in to Hezbollah by allowing it to use armed force against the Jewish state, although the ruling majority wants decisions over war or peace to be restricted to the state.