Clashes spur Lebanese politicians towards forming government
▶ A new Cabinet could be appointed by next week as tempers boil over in Beirut
A new Lebanese government could be formed by next week as a result of the increasingly violent protests in the country, analysts and politicians said on Thursday.
It is three months since the government stepped down in the face of nationwide demonstrations caused by the country’s economic crisis.
“I think we will have a government in the next two days,” a caretaker minister told The National after a second consecutive night of rioting in Beirut.
Sami Nader, director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs in Lebanon, said that if politicians failed to form a new government “in the next days” it could mean “rekindling the revolution”.
Lebanon has been without a government since October 29, when Saad Hariri resigned as prime minister.
The country is facing a liquidity crisis and there has been an increase in unemployment.
People who took part in protests that began on October 17 say Lebanon’s ruling elite, in power since the early 1990s, is corrupt and incapable of reforming the economy.
After a lull in demonstrations during a rainy Christmas and New Year, protesters launched a “week of anger” on Tuesday as Lebanon’s economic crisis worsened.
Protesters vandalised banks, once the cornerstone of the local economy but now a target for people’s anger after imposing limits on withdrawals and other transactions.
Protesters who spoke to The National on Tuesday said they would give politicians 48 hours to form a Cabinet.
Dozens of people have been arrested or injured in clashes with security forces since then, including journalists.
Caretaker interior minister Raya Hassan condemned the violence but said riot police were “very tired”.
University professor Hassan Diab was appointed prime minister-designate on December 19 and said he would form a government of independent specialists.
But he has faced stiff resistance from several of the main political parties that backed his nomination, including President Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s Amal Movement.
“Political parties in the Lebanese establishment have yet to realise that October 17 was a turning point,” Karim Bitar, an international relations analyst at the Institute for International and Strategic Affairs in Paris, told The National.
“They are still digging in their heels and trying to maximise their part of the pie, but the new prime minister seems determined to insist on forming a relatively restrained government of 18 ministers.”
The government usually comprises at least 30 ministers divided between Lebanon’s main religious communities, which is not conducive to introducing fast-paced reform.
But leading politicians said they would work towards the formation of a new government after protests picked up again last weekend.
“It is clear the resurgence of the protest movement in the street has something to do” with that development, wrote Scarlet Haddad, a columnist for the L’Orient-Le Jour newspaper who is reputedly close to the FPM.
Last week, “certain parties were thinking of pushing [Mr Diab] out” because they were shocked by his inflexibility, she said.
Last Friday, Mr Diab tweeted a strongly worded twopage statement restating his commitment to forming an independent government that would exclude ministers from the previous Cabinet.
“Serious efforts are being deployed to have a government ASAP,” caretaker environment minister Fady Jreissati said.
“So the less we talk, the better it is.”
Should Mr Diab form a government, analysts said they doubted whether he would be able to save the crumbling economy.
“Most of the personalities that are mentioned are indeed independent professionals, but they are not personalities that would enter into a direct confrontation with the political system. Most of them have been approved by the ruling parties,” Mr Bitar said.
“Questions remain as to how much leeway they will have to implement ambitious structural reforms and overhaul the economy.”
Mr Nader was more pessimistic. “Placing puppets, even if they look good, will not solve Lebanon’s problems,” he said.
“Should the government implement true reforms, that will destroy the source of income of political parties that thrive on corruption.”