Sputnik News – Lebanon has been in a state of political turmoil since the explosion in the country’s main port on 4 August. Just a few days after the blast, protests broke out which have led to the resignation of the country’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister designate, Mustapha Adib, says he is stepping down from “the task of forming the government”, Reuters reported.
“The reason for my resignation was that the political factions did not meet my conditions. They failed to refuse to politicise the process of forming a government,” the official said in a statement that was televised by regional broadcasters.
The resignation announcement reportedly followed Adib’s meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun. After a month of shuffles, the PM designate has failed to agree on key positions in the new government to take country out of political crisis, including the one of the finance minister.
On Monday, President Michel Aoun said that Adib was failing to take into account the views of parliamentary factions in Lebanon while trying to form a cabinet.
Political Turmoil in Lebanon
Abid, Lebanon’s former ambassador to Germany, was designated as the new prime minister in the end of August, just shortly before the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron to Beirut after a deadly explosion in the country’s main port.
Before his second visit to the country after the blast, Macron set a deadline of 1 September to enable “political change” in Lebanon. The French president has assumed the role of “broker” in the country’s political crisis, after Prime Minister Hassan Diab and his whole government resigned in August, in the wake of the explosion and the political pressures that resulted from it.
Macron was putting pressures on political leaders in Lebanon to form a new government – made up of independent specialists – as soon as possible. During his September trip to the country, he insisted that the country would be denied international aid if it fails to implement political reforms by December.
