but perhaps not too high", as Berri once said about elephants.

Today the new parliament met for the first time. Nabih Berri, the pro Syrian speaker who served since 1992 was reelected. He was voted in by an overwhelming majority of 90, in a parliament of 128 members. General Aoun and the Lebanese forces had already declared that they will not vote for him. Since no one is running against him, those opposed to him vote with white ballots.

Immediately after his election, Berri visited with president Lahoud to get his blessings and to advise him about starting the discussions with the parliament blocs regarding the selection of the new Prime Minister. This time however, the president will be told who the new PM will be and will not be able to have much say in his selection. Saad Hariri has nominated Fouad Seniora as the new Prime Minister. This is a shrewd move by Hariri, since he will not have to put up with Lahoud, as his slain father had to do. Seniora will therefore be the front man while the decisions will be made behind the scene by Hariri and his allies.

As we reported yesterday, Fouad Seniora will easily win the vote of confidence of the Parliament. Some analysts think he will win 128 votes out of 128, barring of course any absenteeism.

Most expect that the new government will have 24 cabinet positions. In the past the government had 28 members, 4 of which were referred to as State Ministers. None such positions will be allocated this time.

Since General Aoun has already promised to participate in the new cabinet as he has advised Dr. Ghattas Khoury, we expect the Government to represent all parliament blocs. This is good news, since a lot is expected from this government.

There are many issues that face the new parliament. The most pressing issues are:

Releasing Samir Geagea from Jail. It is about time that justice prevails
Solving the present security situation. The Lebanese need to know the truth.. They want to know who is behind these assassinations and how can we stop them.
New election law. A law that guarantees one man one vote.
Disarming Hezbollah and all other armed Militias. The Lebanese army should call the shots if it needs any help (from Hezbollah or any other militia) in defending the country.
Separation of state and religion... Time to make Lebanon secular.
Relationship with Syria, starting with embassies in Damascus and Beirut
Impeaching president Lahoud to recover Lebanon's integrity

Many other issues will have to be dealt with sooner than later

Privatizing some of the public companies is a must specially the electricity company for the following reasons:
. All electric utility companies in the free world make lots of money. The Electric Company in Lebanon loses money.
. Worst of all, this company charges some of the highest rates in the world. While all utility companies reduce the charge per Kilowatt as consumption of power increase, this company increases the charge per Kilowatt.
. As if this is not enough, it is one of the most inefficient companies in the world.
. Imagine this. They don't have fuel to run their power plants and yet Lebanon is surrounded by oil producing countries.
. Most analysts consider this company as the most corrupt in Lebanon.

This of course leads us to corruption in Lebanon. Unfortunately we are not sure if this parliament is qualified to handle this issue. We are hoping that General Aoun will force this issue as he promised in his campaign, even if he joins the Government. This could keep the parliament busy for a while, since corruption is the no. 1 disease in Lebanon and we can write several books about it.

At Ya Libnan we will deal with most of the above issues in future special reports. Our objective is to help make Lebanon a model for future democracies.

Sources: Ya Libnan