The resignation Wednesday, January 12, eleven Hariri government ministers, including ten members of the coalition led by Hezbollah, Lebanon plunged back into a period of political tension. Since 2008, the Doha agreement between the majority and the opposition, the country had never experienced a serious crisis.The block of 8-Mars, composed of Shiite parties Amal and Hezbollah and supporters of the former Christian General Michel Aoun, has been waiting several weeks for the Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, stands out of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. This court, which should shed light on the assassination of Rafik Hariri in February 2005 to launch these coming days of the charges that may apply to leaders of Hezbollah.
The existence of this tribunal is a matter of friction between the two main blocks of Lebanese politics. On the one hand, the coalition of 8-Mars, the other the so-called 14-Mar, composed of Sunni Future Movement, Saad Hariri and several Christian parties. The positions of both sides on the subject seem irreconcilable.
Syrian-Saudi mediation failed this week, under pressure from Washington, provides the block of 8-Mars. The timing of the announcement of the resignation of ministers, open conversation between Hariri and Barack Obama owes nothing to chance. If these departures were expected for several days, the tempo is a way to send a signal to the U.S.
administration. Hezbollah and Michel Aoun's supporters accused Saad Hariri just take his orders to Washington. The 8-March "means that this particular ad is a slap to the United States," said Mustafa Allouch, a member of political council of the movement of Mr. Hariri. According to Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the University of Beirut, interviewed by, "there is little chance of a new government formed in the near future." The political scientist believes that events are likely even if he does not see Hezbollah take to the streets of Beirut with guns, as was the case in May 2008 when the movement had protested against the government's measures to against him.
"The question is actually whether the tension will remain at a political level, or if it will result in violence," Analysis Owen Bennett Jones, BBC correspondent in Beirut. "We're still very far from a civil war," political scientist Joseph Bahout tempers, interviewed by the site of L'Express.
"We are now entering a period of institutional lag. There may be some political tensions, and perhaps some glitches. But none of the opposing parties do not want to go through violence." The military power of Hezbollah in Lebanon is much greater than other forces. The Shiite party has demonstrated, in May 2008 by winning militarily in west Beirut and the Chouf mountains.
In any event, Lebanon will enter a new period of uncertainty. "The entry into the unknown," and headlined Al-Akhbar, a daily close to the opposition. The editor of L'Orient-Le Jour, a daily close to the francophone majority, says the same thing, calling the situation a "leap into the unknown."
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