Lebanon: "We can expect a trench warfare between the president and Hariri"

After months of political crisis, Saad Hariri has once again been appointed Prime Minister, promising a government of experts to pull Lebanon out of a serious economic crisis and attempt to reform the state apparatus.

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Text by: Murielle Paradon Follow

5 mins

After months of political crisis, Saad Hariri has once again been appointed Prime Minister.

For Jo Bahout, political scientist, director of the Fares Institute for Public Policy at the American University of Beirut, this appointment shows the resilience of the political class.

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A year after his forced resignation and months of political crisis,

.

He promises a government of experts to get Lebanon out of a serious economic crisis and attempt to reform the state apparatus, a

for negotiating international aid.

Saad Hariri has already led three governments in the past.

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Jo Bahout

The symbol is very cruel for the street and the protest in Lebanon, because this return of Saad Hariri comes a year just after the outbreak of the

, which brought down the government of national unity of Saad Hariri.

A government much like the one it is about to remake today, even if it will probably include non-partisan or apparently non-partisan figures.

The symbol is therefore very strong.

He first underlines the extraordinary resilience of the political class which somehow succeeded in its comeback and which absorbed the shock of the street.

It also underlines the incapacity and the limit of the popular movement to have produced an acceptable dynamic of change.

It remains to be seen whether the prime minister will be able to form a government because he was appointed by a very narrow majority and because the political class as a whole maintains the same divisions that had prevented other governments from functioning.

Why appoint Saad Hariri

Apparently not, since Saad Hariri is appointed after two or three failed attempts over the past year.

After his departure, a virtually unknown prime minister, drawn from civil society and university technocracy, Hassan Diab, was appointed and did not last long, only a few months.

After

, his government blew up.

We then appointed an ambassador unknown to the general public, Mustafa Adib, it was the French initiative.

He could not form a government because of the multiple vetoes of the political class and probably with a murky game of Saad Hariri who wanted to see him succeed.

We can perhaps suspect it, but then we would enter into a process of intent, that he himself participated in this exhaustion (of applications, editor's note) to keep his chances of getting back to business, which he wanted firmly since that he left the seraglio a year ago.

Will Saad Hariri succeed in forming a government when others have failed

It's not sure.

The President of the Republic, on the eve of the consultations which led to the appointment of Hariri made an extremely offensive speech in which he explained that he was going to put a spoke in the wheels of this Prime Minister, that he did not was not the reformer the street expected, that the collaboration with him had been disappointing.

So we can already expect a trench warfare between the President and the Prime Minister, even before the formation of the government.

Second, the same reasons that caused Mustafa Adib to fail in forming a government should happen again;

namely the refusal of the Shiite tandem to cede the portfolios it considers for granted.

Besides, Hezbollah did not name Saad Hariri.

So there is a certain somewhat hostile expectation.

Then, Saad Hariri's political allies will also burden him with demands that he will not be able to meet.

The mission is difficult.

Some political friends of Saad Hariri even say

that he has just committed another political suicide.

If Saad Hariri manages to form a government, what are the tasks ahead

First it will have to stop the total collapse of the Lebanese economy, the depletion of resources, the end of support for the Lebanese pound, etc.

He will also have to repair the immeasurable physical and psychological damage of the Beirut explosion, which still linger.

Then, the great political task will be the reform of the state apparatus and ultimately the reform of the electoral system and political representation within two years.

These are all titanic tasks and for some almost impossible if there is not the renewal of a minimum trust between the State and the society - it will be almost insurmountable - and

the trust between the State and the International community.

This is what Saad Hariri hopes to be able to do, since he considers that he has the political interpersonal skills to succeed where others could not.

It's an extremely risky bet and I think he took a great political risk in accepting this appointment.

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