BEIRUT: MP Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement insisted Wednesday that the Cabinet must first reach agreement on its decision-making mechanism before moving to discussing any other topics, raising fears of a new confrontation with Prime Minister Tammam Salam during Thursday’s session.

“So far, there have been no positive signals about tomorrow’s Cabinet session. It’s up to Prime Minister Salam, who can steer the Cabinet to constitutional practices based on consensus, or to obstruction, disarray and confrontation,” former Minister Salim Jreissati from the FPM told The Daily Star.

“We insist on reaching agreement on the [decision-making] mechanism first before moving to other topics,” he said.

“What is required is a return to the practice adopted since the Cabinet’s formation [in February 2014], which was based on consensus among the various components of the government on the Cabinet agenda and decisions and the signature by all ministers of normal decrees, including a decree to open an extraordinary parliamentary session,” Jreissati added.

He said the Cabinet should not discuss the urgent problem of garbage collection “because the license for Sukleen [the company tasked with waste management] has been extended and tenders for landfills have been issued.”

Although the trash collection problem has not been put on the agenda, Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouk said he would raise the matter at the Cabinet session.

Minister of Social Affairs Rashid Derbas, who is close to Salam, struck a downbeat note about the outcome of the Cabinet session.

“My expectations are not optimistic. I don’t see a ray of light or a sense of responsibility,” Derbas told the Central News Agency.

In a clear reference to the FPM’s ministers, he said: “Tomorrow’s Cabinet session might not be productive because some are insisting on their demands. I wish there is no Thursday each week.”

Derbas said Salam will open the Cabinet session with a discussion of the decision-making mechanism.

“No one can push us into a vicious circle. We don’t work for anyone and our meetings are not dependent on the will of anyone, but on Salam’s will,” he said. He added that when Salam finds that a key party, a clear allusion to the FPM, is seeking to obstruct the government’s work, he will name that party.

Following a stormy Cabinet session on July 9 marred by a shouting match between Salam and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, the premier promised the FPM’s two ministers that the government would discuss a mechanism to govern its decision-making and exercise executive powers in the absence of a president at its next session on July 23.

The FPM argues that in the absence of a president, traditionally a Maronite Christian, Christian ministers should assume his right to have a say in the Cabinet agenda.

They also argue that no Cabinet decision should be made without their consent.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mohammad Fneish reiterated Hezbollah’s support for the FPM’s stance that the Cabinet must not address any issue before reaching agreement on the decision-making mechanism and the Cabinet exercising the president’s powers during the presidential vacuum.

Asked if he expected Thursday’s Cabinet session to be a stormy one like the previous one, Fneish told The Daily Star: “Ask Leila Abdel Latif or Michel Hayek,” in a reference to two famous Lebanese fortune tellers.

On whether the Cabinet will discuss the garbage collection problem, Fneish said: “Decisions have been made years ago to solve the garbage collection problem in Beirut and its suburbs, but these decisions have not been implemented. Why have these decisions not been implemented? These questions should be posed to the Council for Development and Reconstruction.”