After weeks of uncertainty, Lebanon adopted a new government on Tuesday, January 21, led by Hassan Diab.
The Prime Minister has promised that his government will do everything it can to respond to the demands of the protest movement that has been agitating the country for more than three months and calls for an overhaul of the political system. "It is a government which expresses the aspirations of the demonstrators throughout the country, mobilized for more than three months, which will work to meet their demands: independence of the justice, recovery of embezzled funds, fight against illegal enrichment", he said shortly after his cabinet was announced.
This 60-year-old engineering professor and former education minister, little known to the general public, was appointed on December 19, but Hezbollah and its political allies have so far failed to succeed. hear about the allocation of departments.
The new cabinet includes 20 ministers, including economist Ghazi Wazni, who is appointed to finance, and Nassif Hitti, former ambassador to the Arab League, who will occupy the foreign ministry. The Current of the Future, Saad Hariri’s movement, is not represented in this government, nor are the Lebanese (Christian) Forces or the Progressive Socialist Party, led by the Druze Walid Joumblatt.
Clashes in central Beirut
Lebanon has experienced one of the worst socio-economic and financial crises since the end of the civil war (1975-1990). The country has been living since October 17 at the rhythm of an unprecedented protest movement against the entire ruling class, accused of corruption and incompetence, which led to the resignation, on October 29, of the government of Saad Hariri.
But the protest did not weaken, and more than three hundred people were injured in clashes between demonstrators and security forces that set fire to central Beirut on the night of Saturday to Sunday.
The fall of the Lebanese pound and the supervision of bank withdrawals, combined with high inflation and rising unemployment, weigh on the daily life of the Lebanese.
Protesters demanded that the government include more experts than politicians, but the parties worked to maintain their influence. The international community has conditioned any new financial aid on the formation of a reform cabinet. But the decisive role of Hezbollah, registered on the list of terrorist organizations by the United States, could dissuade certain countries.
