Lebanon: Hezbollah-led opposition takes majority in government

For the building of a mass workers alternative against sectarianism, war and poverty

Aysha Zaki, Beirut, CWI Lebanon

Yesterday (25th Jan), Najib Mikati was appointed new prime minister by the Hezbollah-led opposition which has taken majority in parliament.

Meanwhile Sunni-sectarian protests are being held by thousands of supporters of outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Tripoli, Beirut and elsewhere.

The opposition led by the Iran-backed Shia Islamist Resistance Hezbollah had pulled out of the pro-Western government earlier in January. This followed a row over a UN tribunal investigating the 2005 murder of Rafik Hariri, the father of Western-backed caretaker Saad Hariri.

Hezbollah gained support from parliamentary deputies to allow Mikati, a billionaire Sunni businessman, to form the next government. Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt and six members of his party went over to the opposition parties, allowing Hezbollah to form the core of a future government.

While a power-struggle takes place amongst sectarian-based parties, many Lebanese workers and youth are disenchanted with politics while some look to the inspiring developments in Tunisia as a way forward. 

In the aftermath of the toppling of the Saad Hariri government by the opposition, which pulled out its ministers from the governing cabinet, the crisis has been renewed with tensions building up daily in society. The opposition and pro-government bloc have each been flexing their muscles, by threatening to take to the streets in an attempt to re-mobilize mass support around the same issues which crippled the country after the assassination of Saad Hariri’s father, Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister, in 2005. Working people will pay the price, just as they did for the political stalemate over the past few months, for the sectarian strife that may result. The Lebanese ruling class presides over a society polarised along sectarian, political and especially class lines, as a result of the brutal poverty conditions faced by workers and the unemployed...

Read more: http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/4804