When he came to Beirut, the 1er September, Emmanuel Macron had given them two weeks. “This is the last chance for this system”, had warned the French president in an interview with the American news site Politico, in reference to the party cartel that controls the country. Their officials had until September 15 to agree on the composition of the new government, led by Mustapha Adib, designated successor to Hassan Diab, whose cabinet resigned following the August 4 explosion at the port of Beirut. .
This deadline, very tight in a country used to arguing for months over the distribution of ministries, responded to the absolute state of emergency in which Lebanon finds itself after this disaster, which has left more than 190 dead and 6,500 wounded. It was the first step in a calendar of imperative reforms, under French patronage, intended to patch up a country in tatters.
Three weeks later, no government is in sight. Not only has the Lebanese political class ignored the deadline set by the French president, but, taking advantage of the general depression, its leaders have plunged back into the parochial quarrels of which they have the secret. After the electroshock of August 4, community tensions, the source of Lebanese immobility, are back at a gallop. “As positions have hardened, it seems that there is no solution in the near future”, thus regretted the president, Michel Aoun, during a televised speech broadcast Monday, September 21.
Principle of rotation
The blockage relates to the Ministry of Finance. Mustapha Adib asks that this morocco, held since 2014 by the Shiite Amal party, fall to a representative of another community, arguing the need to rotate the sovereign portfolios. The Current of the Future, the main Sunni formation, led by former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, and the Christians of the Free Patriotic Current, the party of President Michel Aoun and his son-in-law Gebran Bassil, accept this principle of rotation.
But Amal is opposed to it, like his ally, the pro-Iranian movement Hezbollah, an overarmed militia party, classified as terrorist by the United States. The Shiite tandem insists on keeping the finances, arguing not without reason that the institutional division in force in Lebanon favors Sunnis and Christians in terms of executive power. The post of head of government goes to the former and that of head of state is vested in the latter, while the presidency of the Assembly is the prerogative of the Shiites.
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