Saad Hariri steps down as Lebanon’s political crisis continues

The Guardian
September 10, 2009
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/10/saad-hariri-resigns-lebanon

By Hugh Macleod
Beirut

Lebanon entered a new chapter of political vacuum yesterday as prime minister designate Saad Hariri stepped down after his proposed cabinet line up was rejected out of hand by the Hezbollah-led opposition.

“I hope that this decision will be in the interests of Lebanon and will permit a re-launch of dialogue," Hariri said after informing the president he had abandoned current efforts to form a government, three months after his Western-backed coalition won convincing re-election over the Syrian and Iranian-backed opposition.

In dangerous echoes of the protracted crisis that last May saw Hezbollah fighters stage an armed takeover of parts of Beirut, tipping the country to the brink of civil war, leaders on both sides accused each other of breaking the terms of Lebanon’s consensus democracy.

“The other side concerned with the government formation has not made a single concession at all,” warned Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as he announced the opposition’s rejection of Hariri’s cabinet.

In a statement, Hariri criticized the opposition for rejecting his proposal that gave neither his ministers a cabinet majority, nor the opposition a blocking third, but established ministers allied to President Michel Suleiman as having the decisive say.

“This real opportunity to form a cabinet was lost in preconditions,” said Hariri, who is widely expected to be re-appointed prime minister once cabinet negotiations resume. “We had rounds and rounds of consultations and it always ended with no result.”

With Hariri backed by regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia and Hezbollah allied to Saudi’s great rival, Iran, Lebanon’s political conflict is often considered a bell weather for the region’s balance of power.

Nasrallah rejected accusations by Hariri supporters that Hezbollah, a political and militant group which is armed and financed by Iran, was delaying the government’s formation while it waited for the dust to settle on the domestic political turmoil in Iran.

Iran is also facing more severe international sanctions if it fails to meet US President Barak Obama’s offer to engage in serious negotiations over its nuclear programme before the end of the month.

Yet so far the formation of the cabinet has centred on a highly contentious domestic affair: control of Lebanon’s telecoms ministry.

Hezbollah’s top ally, Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun, has insisted his son-in-law, Gibran Bassil, retain the ministry, prompting accusations of feudal favouritism, particularly as top of the new government’s agenda will be the highly lucrative privatisation of the two state-owned mobile firms, expected to garner as much as $7 billion.

Some observers, however, say the ministry has taken on a security dimension in a country where phone records are currently playing a crucial role in the international investigation into the 2005 assassination of Saad Hariri’s father Rafik, a five-time former prime minister, as well as in an unprecedented string of arrests of Lebanese accused of spying for Israel.

“Both sides need the telecoms ministry,” said Ousama Safa, director of the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies. “It’s become very sensitive. For Aoun, it’s a matter of principal, but Hariri needs it to ensure cooperation with the investigation into his father’s killing. It’s the real golden hen.”