Viewpoint

Challenges Facing New Lebanese Government

Date: 22 January 2020 - 22:25

News ID: ۷۵۴۱۵

By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

Lebanon has finally formed a national unity government with new faces in the cabinet representing the various political parties and religious groups of the small Arab country which has a coastline on the Mediterranean Sea and shares most of its land borders with Syria, in addition to a tension-charged frontier with Palestine under its Zionist usurpers.
Prime Minister Hassan Diab, a former education minister, who is computer engineer by profession has named a cabinet of technocrats, including six women ministers, who are expected to be endorsed by the parliament next week.
As per the constitution which was drawn during World War 2 by the French colonialists before they left Lebanon, the prime minister should be a Sunni Muslim, the president a Maronite Christian, and the speaker of parliament a Shi’a Muslim.
Michael Aoun who holds the presidency formally swore in Diab as the premier following consensus with parliament speaker Nabih Berri and the various Shi’a Muslim groups he represents.
Lebanon, which since last October, when Prime Minister Sa’d al-Hariri resigned, has been without a functioning government, due to politicization by outside forces of the peaceful public protests against inflation and economic difficulties.
The crisis has been exacerbated because of meddling by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, which have infiltrated the peaceful protests with their agents who are indulging in acts of vandalism against public and private properties, coupled with anti-national calls for vague and unspecified reforms that are actually intended to sabotage the efforts of the authorities to find a solution to the crisis.
If real reforms are to take place in Lebanon, what is required is a radical change of the sharing of powers specified by the French-drawn constitution, since the largest single group in the country today are the Shi’a Muslims who make up over half of the national population. The Sunni Muslims and Christians come second and third.
The Shi’a Muslims, however, have been magnanimous and are not laying claim to executive power on the basis of their growing numbers, but they want a fair representation in the cabinet and the running of the administration.
The cabinet of Hassan Diab seems to have solved this issue after Lebanon’s legendry anti-terrorist movement, the Hezbollah, gave its nod to him for formation of the government and naming of the cabinet.
The Sunni Muslims and the Christians also share the same views, and despite the feverish efforts of the U.S., the illegal Zionist entity, and Arab reactionary regimes, national unity is firmly embedded in Lebanon.
Former premier, Sa’d al-Hariri, who resigned last October, has pledged not to obstruct the new government’s efforts at stabilizing the situation at home and embark on confidence-building abroad in order to convince the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to release much needed funds for averting an economic collapse.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has welcomed the government’s formation and said he would work with Prime Minister Hassan Diab to support the reform agenda, his spokesman said in a statement released at the World Body’s Headquarters in New York on Wednesday.
In view of these facts, Premier Diab, who cheerfully waived to the protestors after chairing the first meeting of his cabinet by saying "we are here to solve your problems”, should be extra careful against American machinations and the devilish designs of Israel, which regularly violated Lebanon’s air space.
The Zionist should be firmly dealt with, especially concerning the off-shored hydrocarbon fields which they are trying to usurp. At the same time, a stable Lebanon requires building of bridges with Syria, with which its history, culture, religion, and economy in intertwined.
The Islamic Republic of Iran extends its full support to the Lebanese people and their new government.