Lebanon's crisis after the explosion worsens with the resignation of the new prime minister

The Lebanese Prime Minister, Mustafa Adib, after presenting his resignation on Saturday in Beirut.WAEL HAMZEH / EFE

Sectarian misrule amid the worst crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war drags Lebanon into the abyss of failed states.

The resignation of Prime Minister Mustafa Adib, an unknown Sunni diplomat appointed on August 31, has left the initiative of France, a former colonial power, badly hurt this Saturday to rebuild the country and reform its political system after the explosion that on August 4 August devastated the port and downtown Beirut.

French President Emmanuel Macron visited the Lebanese capital twice in August to start the consensus of the confessional and ethnic parties in favor of the appointment of the technocrat Adib, until then ambassador in Berlin.

It was the condition demanded by Elíseo in exchange for channeling international aid through a donor conference in mid-October.

The whole plan is now in question.

Efforts to forge a technical cabinet, with the mission of reforming the clientelistic political system and tackling corruption, have crashed in less than a month against the blockade of the Shiite parties Hezbollah and Amal, which hold the key to control of Parliament .

In the traditional distribution of power quotas, Shiite formations have occupied strategic ministries such as Finance, which Adib preferred to assign an independent technician to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund.

After the recent imposition of economic sanctions by the United States on some of its leaders, the Shiite veto has forced the resignation of the newly appointed prime minister.

While the leader of Amal, the president of Parliament Nabih Berri, has declared in favor of continuing with the reform project promoted by Macron, the pro-Iranian party-militia Hezbollah has remained silent.

The president of Lebanon, the Christian Michel Aoun, also received the resignation of the head of government with the commitment to keep the French initiative standing, which entails the calling of legislative elections within a period of between six months and a year.

Adib limited himself to apologizing to the Lebanese for their "inability to fulfill the aspirations of forming a reformist government team."

"I am not willing to head a Cabinet doomed to failure," he emphasized in a public appearance cited by the BBC.

This same week he had warned that the country would go "to hell" if it failed to form a government, while Paris called on the states with influence over Lebanon to exert "strong and convergent pressure" in favor of Macron's initiative, according to France. Press.

Third prime minister in just 10 months, Adib has failed to re-straighten the system inherited from the civil war.

He relieved the also technocrat Hassan Diab - who resigned after the Beirut port tragedy, which claimed nearly 200 lives, caused some 6,500 injuries and left some 300,000 people homeless - and the main Sunni leader, Said Hariri, who in October threw in the towel amid the largest wave of social protests in recent Lebanese history.

In the midst of the health crisis of the pandemic, the declared unemployment rate rises to 30% and more than half of the 4.5 million Lebanese live below the poverty line.

The supply of electricity is only guaranteed a few hours a day, inflation is around 60% per year, public debt exceeds 170% of Gross Domestic Product and the Lebanese pound has fallen against the dollar for a year.