The head of the caretaker government in Lebanon, Saad Hariri, announced yesterday his refusal to form the next government, saying that his future bloc will meet tomorrow and decide its candidate for prime minister.
Al-Hariri stressed, in a statement, that he will not be a candidate to form the next Lebanese government, and will go today, Thursday, to "participate in parliamentary consultations on this basis, while insisting that it not be postponed under any pretext."
At the beginning of his statement, Hariri said: “Since I submitted my resignation 50 days ago, in response to the cry of the Lebanese and Lebanese women, I have strived to reach the fulfillment of their demand by a government of specialists that I saw as the only one capable of dealing with the serious social and economic crisis facing our country.”
He continued: «When I found out that despite my categorical commitment to form a government of specialists, the positions that have emerged in the past few days regarding the issue of my name are positions that are not subject to change. I have invited the Future Parliamentary Bloc to the meeting (this morning) to determine its position on the issue of naming.
Lebanon has been witnessing protests since last October 17, which led to the resignation of Hariri as prime minister, amid anger over the government's failure to address the country's worst economic crisis since the civil war that raged between 1975 and 1990.