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LEBANON-POLITICS-PROTEST
Lebanon talks for new PM begin
BEIRUT, Dec 19, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Lebanon’s president started consultations
Thursday to pick a replacement for Saad Hariri, who resigned seven weeks ago
under pressure from an unprecedented wave of protests.
Hassan Diab, a professor at the American University of Beirut and a former
education minister, was tipped by Lebanese media as Hariri’s likely
successor. A new government is urgently needed to tackle a spiralling
economic crisis which has left the country teetering on the brink of default.
President Michel Aoun launched the twice delayed official talks to
designate a new prime minister after Hariri announced on Wednesday he would
not seek to keep his job.
The 49-year-old had in recent days been seen as the most likely choice to
head a technocrat-dominated government but he announced late Wednesday he was
pulling out.
Hariri resigned on October 29, nearly two weeks into a nationwide cross-
sectarian protest movement demanding the wholesale removal of a political
elite seen as corrupt and incompetent.
Lebanon has been ruled by the same political clans and families since the
1975-1990 civil war and protesters have pushed for a technocratic government.
“I have strived to meet their demand for a government of experts, which I
saw as the only option to address the serious social and economic crisis our
country faces,” Hariri said in a statement.
But he explained that his designation for a third term as prime minister
had drawn too much opposition from his political rivals.
Hariri has cast himself as a champion of economic reform held hostage by
unwilling coalition partners, but protesters see him as a product of
Lebanon’s hereditary politics.
– Hassan Diab –
Lebanon’s top politicians started trickling into the presidential palace on
Thursday morning for consultations with Aoun, raising hopes that an
announcement was imminent.
The power-sharing system that was enshrined after the end of the civil war
means that the prime minister’s position should be filled by a member of the
Sunni Muslim community.
Lebanese media named the new frontrunner as 60-year-old Hassan Diab, a vice
president at AUB who held the education portfolio between 2011 and 2014.
“Hassan Diab is the new prime minister in charge of forming a government,”
the An-Nahar newspaper said on its front page.
Others were less affirmative and top Sunni politicians stopped short of
declaring their support for Diab, whose designation local media reported was
backed by the powerful Shiite group Hezbollah.
Diab’s previous and only tenure as a minister was in a government formed
after Hariri’s cabinet was brought down by Hezbollah and its political
allies.
While the huge crowds that filled the squares of Beirut and other Lebanese
cities two months ago have dwindled, the protest movement is still alive and
keeping politicians in check.
The candidacy of a billionaire who was presented as an alternative to
Hariri was quickly shut down by angry crowds last month and attempts by MPs
to pass contested laws were thwarted by demonstrators blocking access to
parliament.
The past few days were marked by a spike in tensions on the ground, with
counterdemonstrators supporting Shiite parties Amal and Hezbollah clashing
with security forces.
Protesters say their ranks are routinely infiltrated by thugs hired to
discredit their movement.
Tensions have been further heightened by the looming bankruptcy of the
debt-ridden Lebanese state, with banks unable to respond to a stinging
liquidity crunch.
The Lebanese pound, officially pegged to the US dollar, has lost around 30
percent of its value on the black market.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1558 hrs