Lebanon cabinet will function despite Hariri resignation: Parliament speaker
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has announced that the country’s government will continue to function despite resignation of Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri.
Sources who had met with Berri said on Wednesday he was on the opinion that capacities of the Lebanese government “will not change” by Hariri’s bizarre way of announcing resignation from outside the country.
Hariri said in a weekend live broadcast from an undisclosed location in Saudi Arabia that the post was no longer tenable for him due to what he called intervention by Lebanese resistant movement Hezbollah and Iran.
The sources cited Berri as saying that announcing resignation “in this form” was not enough to dismantle the cabinet.
The shock resignation took almost everyone by surprise in Lebanon while it sparked various reactions across the Middle East and in the West.
Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah rejected the former premier’s allegations and said the entire story of resignation was a scenario by Saudi Arabia. Hariri had accused Hezbollah of meddling in the affairs of the government. Nasrallah also dismissed Hariri’s claims that he had flown to Saudi Arabia because he feared for his life. Lebanese intelligence and security authorities have also denied there was any plot to assassinate Hariri.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun has said that he is still waiting for Hariri to return and submit his resignation.
Hariri, the son of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, who was killed in a Beirut bombing in 2005, ascended to the post of premiership after he reached a deal with Aoun, a figure close to Hezbollah, last year.
Under Lebanon’s power-sharing system, the premier should be a Sunni Muslim, the president has to be picked from the country’s Christians and the role of the speaker of the parliament should go to Shia Muslims.
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