BEIRUT: A stormy Cabinet session ended Thursday with a compromise that allowed Prime Minister Tammam Salam to pass one agenda item relating to funds to public hospitals, while the Free Patriotic Movement’s ministers won a pledge to discuss the government’s decision-making system at the next meeting.
The long-simmering tension between FPM leader MP Michel Aoun and Salam exploded inside the Cabinet into a mud-slinging match between the premier and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law, when the latter began talking about violation of the Constitution and infringing on the Maronite president’s powers in an indirect swipe at Salam.