BEIRUT: A rift among ministers over the government’s decision-making mechanism during the 9-month-old presidential vacuum widened over the weekend, preventing a Cabinet session for this week.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai, outraged by Parliament’s repeated failure to elect a president, entered the fray over the Cabinet’s decision-making mechanism, warning against devising an unconstitutional mechanism of governing in a bid to replace the president’s powers.

Meanwhile, Speaker Nabih Berri described his meeting with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri at his Ain al-Tineh residence Friday night as “excellent,” saying the two agreed that the presidential vacuum would leave “negative repercussions” on the general situation in Lebanon.

“Tackling the presidential [election] issue begins with an inter-Christian understanding on an acceptable candidate,” Berri was quoted as saying by visitors at Ain al-Tineh.

Berri, according to the visitors, said that the seventh round of talks between the Future Movement and Hezbollah would discuss the presidential election issue. “If there is a Christian understanding on a candidate, I will be the first to open the road to settling the presidential issue,” he said.

On the row over the Cabinet’s decision-making mechanism, Berri said he and Hariri agreed on the need to resort to the Constitution in any mechanism that governs the Cabinet’s work “because it is not permissible to paralyze the country and institutions.” However, he warned that if the Cabinet returned to work according to the current mechanism, “it would remain stalled with weak productivity.”

For his part, Hariri said he expected the Future Movement’s dialogue with Hezbollah to bring more stability and economic prosperity to Lebanon.

“Our dialogue with Hezbollah is to ensure the minimum components of security and political stability, in order to revitalize the economy and improve people’s living conditions,” Hariri said during a meeting with representatives of the Economic Committees at his Downtown Beirut residence Saturday.

The Cabinet did not meet last week due to differences among its 24 ministers over a decision-making mechanism.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam, backed by most ministers, is demanding a change in the current mechanism, which requires unanimous support from all 24 ministers on the Cabinet decisions. He argued that the mechanism has hindered the government’s productivity due to disagreement among ministers on decisions taken by the Cabinet.

Salam, who returned to Beirut Sunday from a visit to Rome, is expected to resume his contacts with the Cabinet’s key parties to agree on a new formula to replace the current mechanism, the sources told The Daily Star.

Some Cabinet parties are expected to tell Salam that they support a constitutional and legal formula that calls for decisions to be passed unanimously. In case consensus is hard to achieve, then draft laws are passed with a majority vote and crucial decisions must be approved by two-thirds of the ministers.

Amid the sharp divisions among ministers over amending the decision-making mechanism, Salam is unlikely to call for a Cabinet session this week, the sources said. According to the sources, Salam would seek to achieve consensus on any mechanism that could be adopted, while stressing that the current mechanism was no longer feasible because of the obstruction exercised by some ministers through it.

While Salam is adamant on changing the current mechanism, seven Christian ministers and a Muslim minister, who met at former President Michel Sleiman’s residence in Yarze last week, oppose the change, saying the Cabinet should serve in a caretaker capacity until a new president is elected.

The eight ministers included the three Kataeb ministers, three ministers loyal to Sleiman, Telecommunications Minister Boutros Harb and Tourism Minister Michel Pharaon.

Labor Minister Sejaan Azzi, one of the three Kataeb ministers, warned that any change in the current decision-making mechanism would not only topple the Cabinet, but also undermine the spirit of the country’s National Pact on equal power sharing between Muslims and Christians.

He said the attitude of the ministers who had met at Sleiman’s residence was not directed against Salam. “On the contrary, they backed Salam and stood on his side against groups that are working to oust him,” Azzi told The Daily Star, without naming those groups.

“We don’t agree that the Cabinet practices the president’s functions. Hence, came the [Maronite] patriarch’s stance as well as the stances of all Christian parties [opposing a change in the mechanism].”

However, political sources said the meeting at Sleiman’s residence was a reaction to the agreement on the Cabinet’s mechanism reached between MP Michel Aoun and other political parties, namely the Future Movement, Hezbollah, the Amal Movement and MP Walid Jumblatt. If adopted, the mechanism would marginalize Sleiman’s role by negating the veto right enjoyed by his three ministers.

For his part, Rai said the Cabinet must serve in a caretaker capacity, warning against devising an unconstitutional mechanism of governing. “The violation of the Constitution, the National Pact and the coexistence formula has reached a peak with the failure to elect a president over the past nine months, and consequently with the disruption of Parliament’s prerogatives and the government’s work,” Rai said in his Sunday sermon at Bkirki, north of Beirut.

Noting that the Cabinet, in addition to its executive powers, exercises the president’s prerogatives by proxy during the presidential vacuum, he said: “The Cabinet must exercise the president’s powers only by consensus and with a caretaker mentality rather than by devising mechanisms that run contrary to the Constitution as if the presidential vacuum is a normal matter.”