Lebanon protests: Prime minister Saad Hariri resigns amid mass demonstrations

Lebanon’s prime minister Saad Hariri resigned on Tuesday in response to nearly two weeks of nationwide anti-government protests.

Mr Hariri said he had reached a “dead end” following 13 days of turmoil. “No one is bigger than their country,” he added.

His resignation came at the end of a day blighted by violence, as supporters of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and its political ally, Amal, attacked protesters in downtown Beirut.

Mass demonstrations have swept the country since 17 October over a litany of longstanding grievances, including rampant corruption, lack of public services and a worsening economic crisis.

Banks have remained shut over fears of financial collapse, while demonstrators have come out in their hundreds of thousands, blocking roads and filling squares.

In a country where politics is usually divided along sectarian lines, protesters have called for the resignation of all party leaders and new elections.

“For 13 days the Lebanese people have waited for a decision for a political solution that stops the deterioration [of the economy]. And I have tried, during this period, to find a way out, through which to listen to the voice of the people,” Mr Hariri said in his speech.

“It is time for us to have a big shock to face the crisis. To all partners in political life, our responsibility today is how we protect Lebanon and revive its economy.”

Protesters responded to the announcement by chanting a refrain that has become popular during the demonstrations: “All of them means all of them,” a rallying cry for the removal of all the country’s political leaders.

“This is the first thing we have achieved with our revolution. That’s one down, many more to go,” said Zeinab Mroueh, 38, at an impromptu party in downtown Beirut celebrating the news.

“We were always following our leader before, but this revolution was for everybody. We all put our leaders aside. This is the first time you are seeing Muslims with Christians and Druze all together saying the same thing: everybody must resign.”

Another protester, Firas Faraj, 41, said the resignation was “just the start”.

“This is the first time something like this has happened in Lebanon. We want to have another government, a technocratic government and we should start working on another election.

“No matter what happens we have done so much. We Lebanese grew up here but we never felt this one of love for our country.”

Lebanon’s confessional political system requires that its governments are formed by consensus, and stipulates a complex power-sharing between its different religious communities.

Mr Hariri was named prime minister of a national unity government in January this year, nine months after the country’s last elections.

His resignation will likely spark a new round of political deadlock in Lebanon, as the country seeks to form a new government.

The protests have plunged Lebanon’s political class into chaos. For the first time, the sectarian political order that has governed this eastern Mediterranean nation since the end of the civil war in 1990 is facing a mass movement aimed at its overthrow.

The combination of an acute economic crisis and decades of rampant corruption has pushed the country to the edge.

Lebanon has one of the highest debt-to-GDP ratios in the world due to years of mismanagement. Unemployment stands at close to 25 per cent, and tens of thousands of educated young people leave the country each year due to a lack of opportunity.

What began as a spontaneous burst of anger over a new set of taxes quickly turned into something bigger. Rather than targeting the government or any one political leader, protesters called out Lebanon’s corrupt political class in its entirety.

The scale of the protests appears to have taken the government completely by surprise. In an attempt to quell the protests, Mr Hariri announced a package of reform measures last Monday. They included cutting the salaries of top officials, and abolishing several state institutions. But protesters were not convinced and continued to demonstrate.

The current government is dominated by factions allied with Hezbollah, the most powerful armed group in the country. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of the demonstrations. Last week he suggested that they were being influenced by foreign powers, and warned of “chaos and collapse”.

His supporters have ramped up their hostility towards the demonstrators in turn.

Just hours before Mr Hariri’s announcement, hundreds of supporters of Hezbollah and its ally, the Amal movement, attacked protesters in Beirut in some of the worst violence since demonstrations began.

Around midday, large groups chanting slogans in support of both parties began violently attacking protesters who were blocking a main road through downtown Beirut.

The Independent witnessed the group throwing rocks and beating protesters and journalists. A large number then swept passed police into downtown Beirut, where they destroyed a protest encampment that had sprung up in the past week.

After several hours of skirmishes they were cleared from downtown by the army. Protesters then returned to the main protest area in the centre of the city and began to clean up.