PM Mikati Holds Consultations with MPs, Blocs Amid ‘Urgent’ Need for Govn’t Formation Today, Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati began his rounds of non-binding consultations with various parliamentary blocs regarding the formation of a new government. [Naharnet] While most Parliamentarians stressed the urgency of forming a new government amid Lebanon’s debilitating and worsening economic crisis, other MPs denounced any configuration of a ‘national-unity’ government, stressing instead the need for a ‘government made up of independents’. [L’Orient Today]
Civil Servants Continue Strike, To Hold Sit-In Tomorrow According to L’Orient Today, “Public administration employees in Lebanon, who have been on an open strike since June 13, plan to hold a sit-in on Tuesday in front of the Port of Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported Sunday. Civil servants are calling on the state to implement measures to help them cope with the economic crisis, predominantly through an increase in salaries.” [L’Orient Today]
Gallup Poll on Global ‘Emotional Temperature’: World’s Angriest Country is Lebanon Based on figures published through Statista, Gallup’s Global Emotions poll observed that Lebanon is the world’s angriest country, followed closely by Turkey. The data used in the report came from surveys of 1000 individuals across over 100 countries, aged 15 and older, in which respondents were asked whether they had experienced anger in the past 24 hours, alone. In Lebanon, 49% of all respondents answered ‘yes’. [Statista]
Residential Building in Tripoli Collapses Yesterday, a three-story residential building collapsed in Tripoli, possibly in relation to inclement weather conditions, killing one individual and injuring several others. [L’Orient Today]
OPINION & ANALYSIS
The Jordan Times
How Foreign Powers Could Break Lebanon’s Gridlock Jamal Ibrahim Haidar and Adeel Malik
Haidar and Malik write, “While foreign powers with interests in Lebanon often do voice support for reforms, they lack the proper incentives to back up their rhetoric with concrete action, because doing so would simply undercut their own influence in the country. Meanwhile, the Lebanese people have been left to suffer at the hands of an oppressive economic structure. In 2021, the country’s GDP was just $20.5 billion, down from $55 billion in 2018. With poverty rates soaring and the currency having lost 90 per cent of its value, the economy is teetering on the edge of collapse, and a humanitarian crisis is looming. It doesn’t have to be this way. If foreign stakeholders wanted to effect positive change within the country, they would have many tools for doing so. They could easily tie the hands of Lebanon’s political elites by applying existing laws in their home countries, and by leveraging their influence over global financial institutions to hold politically exposed persons (PEPs) in Lebanon to account . . . Coordinated action among strategic rivals is a tall order; but it is the only option. Lebanon’s institutional troubles cannot be wished away. The international community must reassess the costs of the country’s perverse political equilibrium, and Lebanon’s main foreign patrons must recognise that they ultimately share an interest in breaking the country’s institutional gridlock.”
Associated Press In Lebanon, How To Say ‘I Do’ Sparks Fierce Debate
Mariam Fam and Bassem Mroue
Fam and Mroue write, “In Lebanon, an on-again, off-again debate over whether such civil marriages may be held inside the country, and for whom, is contentious and mired in religious and political entanglements . . . The issue has flared up anew after a few recently elected lawmakers raised their hands in approval when asked on television whether they would support “optional” civil marriage. That infuriated those insisting marriages must remain under religious authorities’ purview.”
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the American Task Force on Lebanon, a non-profit, nonpartisan leadership organization of Lebanese-Americans.
