Lebanese PM to resign after more than a third of cabinet quits

[muriel_volestrangler]

Lebanon’s besieged government is poised to fall after more than a third of ministers quit their posts, forcing the prime minister, Hassan Diab, to resign.

Diab, who has been prime minister for nine months, is due to notify the president, Michel Aoun, who is expected to accept his resignation. Diab will address the nation at 7.30pm local time.

However, the move is unlikely to lead to a clean sweep of the embattled government, with current ministers – including those who have resigned – set to assume a caretaker role and form the backbone of a new administration.

Instead a push is under way for more than a third of sitting MPs to quit parliament, which would force new parliamentary elections and could lead to an injection of new members less tainted by corruption and nepotism.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/10/lebanese-pm-to-resign-after-more-than-a-third-of-cabinet-quits

[safeinOhio]

1. Good way to stop protestors.

Are you listening tRump?

[NCjack]

2. Diab has no honorable alternative.

[dutch777]

3. I feel for the people of Lebanon

They are a microcosm of all the forces that make substantive progressive change in the Middle East such an intractable problem. Essentially tribal/religious elites that follow their own interests rather than that of a common good. The IMF is right to shut off the money spigot until real reform happens but how the Lebanese can achieve any real change without outside help when the world is focused on a pandemic and no one is really interested in investing the time and money it would take to guide and support that change. France has voiced support but probably has too little to give and will quickly tire of the local political infighting. If one looks around the world right now, you see very quickly that just like zombie businesses that got by on borrowing in a hot economy with low interest rates, there are zombie countries like Lebanon that essentially followed the same model. Turkey is in trouble, Venuzela of course and many others. While we may well cause our own economic pain thru ill conceived policies, it may be more likely that a cascade of soveriegn debt failures by a group of these smaller countries brings western banks down and pulls us all into an abyss.