He is an academic and a former minister. Lebanese President Michel Aoun appointed Hassan Diab on Thursday, December 19, as Prime Minister to succeed Saad Hariri. Supported by the Shiite Hezbollah movement, the new head of government will have to calm the popular protest, which has been shaking the country since the end of October.
An engineer little known to the general public, Hassan Diab was Minister of Education in a cabinet dominated by Hezbollah and its allies in 2011, after the collapse of a government coalition already led at the time by Saad Hariri.
On the brink of economic collapse, Lebanon has been living since October 17 at the rate of an unprecedented popular uprising against the entire ruling class, accused of corruption and incompetence. The demonstrators demand the formation of a cabinet of technocrats independent of the political harassment in power since the end of the civil war (1975-1990).
Saad Hariri had renounced his own succession and his parliamentary bloc had not appointed any candidate to replace him.
AFP
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