Saad Hariri announced on Thursday that he was stepping down as Lebanon’s prime minister-designate, accusing the Hezbollah-led opposition of blocking weeks of efforts to unlock a political stalemate.
“Given that my commitment to forming a government of national unity has run up against difficulties that everyone now knows about, I announce that I have informed the president of the republic that I have abandoned trying to form a government,” he told journalists in Beirut.
“I worked for 73 days to achieve this objective but each time the rounds of negotiations were hampered one way or another,” added Hariri, saying the team he had proposed was “frittered away through conditions imposed” by the minority.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon in a statement expressed “regret” over the failure to form a new government, while Qatar, which brokered a reconciliation accord between Lebanon’s political factions in May last year, offered to host a new conference.
“We hope that the Lebanese will find a solution but we are ready to help them if that becomes necessary,” Qatari Prime and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr al-Thani said after talks in Paris.
“In Lebanon, everything must be done by consensus,” he said.
Hariri and his allies won a healthy majority of 71 seats in the 128-member parliament in the June election, while the Hezbollah camp clinched 57.
“I hope that this decision will be in the interests of Lebanon and will permit a relaunch of dialogue,” he said.
The announcement comes after more than two months of fruitless efforts. The rejection of Hariri’s proposed team sparked fears of a new political crisis in a country where bickering led to deadly fighting only last year.
Without naming names, Hariri said on Thursday “it seemed to me that certain people had no intention of moving forward or of leaving behind this opposition to change by wanting to impose extravagant conditions.”
A ruling alliance source said Hezbollah’s key Christian ally had demanded his son-in-law be assigned a post in the Cabinet.
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