Lebanon’s 89-year-old President Michel Aoun left office on Sunday and dissolved the country’s government.
The move came just one day before he officially reached the conclusion of his six-year term, and less than a week after Beirut signed a maritime border agreement with Israel in an “indirect ceremony” the country’s Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, called “a great victory for Lebanon. . . Our mission is complete. [The agreement] is not an international treaty and it is not a recognition of Israel.”
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The deal brokered by US energy envoy Amos Hochstein gave Lebanon complete control over the offshore Qana natural gas field, and all of Bloc 8 (up to Line 23), in accordance with its demands at the start of the talks.
Now Aoun has left an empty office behind with no successor in the wings and with the country’s currency at its lowest value ever. More than 80 percent of the population has been plunged into abject poverty.
The country’s cabinet, led by Acting Prime Minister Najib Mikati, will function as a caretaker government for now in accordance with legal parameters.
“The government will continue to perform all its constitutional duties, including acting in caretaker capacity in line with the texts of the constitution and the laws that govern its work,” Mikati said in a letter to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
But Mikati has said that he will not convene the cabinet unless there is a major emergency, A-Sharq al-Awsat reported, quoting a “prominent ministerial source” who said, “Mikati is insisting that he will not convene the cabinet unless there is a situation of utmost necessity which requires the cabinet to convene to take a stance on a major issue related to the country’s national security or a grand and unexpected event.”
Aoun said in his farewell speech that the country’s judiciary “is not performing its role and the culprits are still outside the courts, perhaps because they are cronies of those in charge,” Naharnet reported.
“They paralyzed the probe into the port blast because the Higher Judicial Council chief does not want the appointments that would lead us to the truth,” Aoun charged.
“The country needs reform and to get rid of the influential officials who paralyzed the judiciary and halted investigations into the port blast,” he said, referring to a mammoth blast on August 4, 2020 at the Port of Beirut caused by a fire in a warehouse in which a vast stockpile of ammonium nitrate was stored.
The explosion that killed more than 220 people and injured at least 6,500 more, in addition to leveling an enormous percentage of the city, destroying or damaging some 300,000 homes in the process.
“The central bank governor carried out financial crimes and a judicial and criminal investigation was carried out, but it did not reach the courts.
“The country is looted,” he added.
Shortly after, Aoun quit the Ba’abda Palace and went home to his residence in Rabieh.
