China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Beirut mired in economic, political crisis
A year after port blast, Lebanon crippled by fuel shortages, high unemployment, leadership uncertainty
Near the site of last year’s massive port blast in Beirut, Pierre El Haddad is still rebuilding his heavily damaged school in a nation caught up in a deep economic crisis and political uncertainty.
With a new semester starting soon, the professor at Saint Joseph University is unsure whether his students will be able to return to campus, and not solely because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Right now, because of the petrol crisis, we cannot find gas. We cannot force students to come to university,” said El Haddad, who is also the founder and chair of the Network of Organizational Development Experts, a public policy advisory group based in Lebanon.
After the central bank said this month that it could no longer subsidize fuel imports at a preferential exchange rate, Lebanon has experienced power outages because of fuel shortages. Panic ensued with suppliers scaling back deliveries. The Lebanese pound has also lost 90 percent of its value.
A short-term compromise by officials can maintain fuel subsidies until the end of September. On Aug 17, Najat Rochdi, the United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon, warned that fuel shortages threaten essential health and water services across the country, putting thousands at risk of a humanitarian catastrophe.
The UN Population Fund estimates that at least 3.5 million out of Lebanon’s 6 million people are in need of aid.
On Aug 4 last year, a massive explosion ripped through Beirut claiming more than 200 lives, injuring about 6,500 people and damaging an estimated 300,000 homes.
The explosion was caused by a warehouse fire, and local authorities admitted to keeping a stockpile of ammonium nitrate there for seven years.
The port explosion and 2019 protests have exposed the level of corruption, the stagnant economy and rising unemployment in Lebanon, said Manjari Singh, associate fellow at think tank Centre for Land Warfare Studies in New Delhi.
“In short, the two incidents have revealed the fragility of the Lebanese system,” Singh said.
Lebanon has been run by a caretaker government since the resignation of former prime minister Hassan Diab’s cabinet following the Beirut explosion. The formation of a new Cabinet has been a great challenge due to Lebanon’s sectarian and factional rivalries.
Billionaire telecoms tycoon Najib Mikati, a former premier, was recently voted by lawmakers as prime minister designate, and announced some progress toward forming a Cabinet. Mikati has denied charges of making illicit gains from subsidized housing loans.
“Lebanon is going through a political churning, especially owing to its consociational democratic system which has resulted in sectarian politics in the country,” Singh said, explaining that such a system is typical in a divided society where there is power sharing among elites from different social groups.
In Lebanon, for instance, the prime minister has to be a Sunni Muslim, the president has to be Maronite Christian and the speaker a Shia Muslim.
On the anniversary of the Beirut explosion, the International Conference in Support of the Lebanese People, co-convened by France and the UN, raised around $370 million in emergency aid.
El Haddad is grateful for the aid and cash donations that have been pouring into Lebanon, but he said the country has enough resources to stand on its own feet. “The country has enough talent,” he said.
Lebanon is going through a political churning, especially owing to its consociational democratic system which has resulted in sectarian politics in the country.”
Manjari Singh, associate fellow at think tank Centre for Land Warfare Studies in New Delhi