MP Jumblatt says excluding any party from government is useless

 
National Struggle Front leader Walid Jumblatt stressed on Monday the need to form a new government in Lebanon in order to end the ordeal of the Lebanese people who are grappling with unemployment, economic recession and social problems. 

In his weekly statement to al-Anbaa daily, Jumblatt said that “the blocking third (veto power) in the government, and attempts to exclude Lebanese parties from the cabinet were doomed to failure in the past.”           

“Excluding any power from the government is useless,” he said in reference the March 14 coalition's demands calling on the exclusion of Hezbollah from the new cabinet. 

On another note, MP Jumblatt wondered whether the political parties are aware of the growing public debt while no serious plans are set in order to address the issue.                 

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said earlier on Monday that "the new government must not include Hezbollah, pointing out that a party deeply involved in the Syrian conflict should not participate in the cabinet.” Geagea's call reiterates that of the Future movement in terms of Hezbollah's exclusion.     

Hezbollah has openly joined the fight in Syria, and the group's fighters were instrumental in a recent victory achieved by Syrian regime forces in light of the latter's capture of the strategic town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border.        

Lebanon's Sunni Muslims mostly back the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels in Syria, while many Shiites support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is a member of Syria's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.