The President of the “Independence Movement”, MP Moawad stated the following:

“One day before the binding parliamentary consultations, and referring to my belief that the solution to save Lebanon starts with the formation of a government able to obtain the confidence and execute the necessary reform, and since it is necessary that everyone assumes his responsibility, and since the nomination game should end, I insist the following:

First, with all my respect to the engineer Samir El Khatib who is not responsible of what is happening; it is obvious that his name is not really accepted by people, and he cannot make a positive shock for the Lebanese street, the financial and economic market. Moreover, he will not be able to conciliate the Lebanese citizens with their constitutional institutions as the main condition to recuperate the confidence and maintain the social stability.

Second, based on the recent political positions, the agreement between the different Lebanese parties about nominating Samir El Khatib does not enjoy any immunity and will fall at the first political obstacle; the matter that will expose the future government to crisis that Lebanon cannot resist, especially amidst this financial, economic and social failure.

Third, the suggested government is a copy of the previous government. Therefore, it will not be able to execute reform operations and to conciliate Lebanon with the Arab and international communities; the matter that will aggravate the lack of confidence of the donating countries and the international institutions in Lebanon in the most critical phase of our modern history.

Therefore, I insist again on my previous positions, from the beginning of the revolution, in which I highlighted the necessity of forming a reduced government of technocrats in order to recuperate the confidence of the Lebanese people in their constitutional institutions and obtain the support of the political parties on a strong national agreement and conciliate Lebanon with the Arab and international community. Despite the dangerous situation, forming a new government that is not able to make reforms will lead to a very dangerous situation. Therefore, I declare that I will nominate the ambassador Nawaf Salam to form a reduced government of technocrats that responds to the people’s ambitions, and conciliate Lebanon with the Arab and international communities, and will be able to obtain the confidence of the majority of the Parliament.”