Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Najib Mikati (Image: Palácio do Planalto)
Protests against a Hezbollah-allied prime minister being selected in Lebanon turned violent on Tuesday.
Najib Mikati, an American educated billionaire, was selected to replace Saad Hariri. He’s the son of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri who was assassinated in 2005 by a massive car bomb.
The crisis was started because of the investigation into that assassination. Saad Hariri’s cabinet collapsed last week after he refused to denounce a United Nations special tribunal investigating the killing.
Hezbollah has acknowledged that some of its members will be named as the culprits in the case. The group has denied any involvement and calls the court an Israeli and American backed conspiracy against them. Hezbollah and its supporters pulled out of the government and it fell. Some had hoped that members of parliament would re-elect Hariri.
With the government up for grabs, Hezbollah and its allies convinced a parliamentary block lead by Druze leader Walid Jumblatt to cast votes for their candidate, Najib Mikati. He’s a Sunni Muslim Member of Parliament from the northern city of Tripoli. Last year, Mikati had run in last year’s elections on Hariri’s ticket.
Under Lebanon’s complicated sectarian system, the prime minister must be Sunni – the president a Christian and the speaker of parliament a Shiite.
Najib Mikati says he’s not with either Hezbollah or Hariri, but in the middle. At a press conference Tuesday, Mikati called for unity and peace as the protests continued.
“Be assured that the outcome of the parliamentary consultation was not a victory of one group over another or a victory of one party against another,” Mikati said. “It is a victory for moderation in the face of extremism, a victory for unity in the face of division, a victory for reconciliation in the face of differences, and a victory for love in the face of grudge. Be reassured that I will not hesitate for a minute in rendering justice, in redressing injustice and in defending the freedom of opinion.”
But Hariri supporters in Mikati’s hometown of Tripoli were not in a unity kind of mood. Protestors in Tripoli’s central square burned an Al Jazeera van and then sacked one of Mikati’s offices.
Across the country, violent protests by Sunnis spread. Young men burned tires and blocked streets.
A man named Mustafa watched as a boy pulled a tire into the middle of the road in Beirut and set it on fire. He said no one else but Saad Hariri should represent Lebanon’s Sunnis.
“To become Lebanese Prime Minister, it should only be for the Hariri house,” Hariri said. “He’s the prime minister, and his father, was also a prime minister, so this is a tradition for the Hariri house.
Young Hariri supporters on motorbikes carried more tires to a major intersection in Beirut. They were met by dozens of soldiers in armored personnel carriers and riot gear. As soldiers tried to put out the fires, the young men chanted death to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, whose group the Hariri supporters said had staged a coup.
The soldiers arrived in force, and pushed the protestors back.
Butros Harb, a member of parliament allied with Hariri’s March 14 movement, said Tuesday at the presidential palace that the naming of a prime minister allied with Hezbollah does not bode well for the country.
“The way it happened, it’s not good,” Harb said. “And it’s a kind of maneuver that permitted Mr. Mikati, in the name of Hezbollah, to be imposed on the Lebanese. He’s not a person under doubt, as a person, but the way he was nominated and imposed on the 14th of March, to gain their votes, it’s not a democratic way.”
During the day, Saad Hariri went on television asking for calm.
“I understand the shouts of anger that have come out of your chest, that are full of pain and dignity,” Hariri said. “But it is not right that this anger leads us to what is against our values and upbringing, and our belief that democracy is our only resort and the only way we express our political stance. Raise the Lebanese flag high above your head and know that I will always be with you.”
But protestors weren’t soothed by his words. They say now Iran and Syria, which occupied Lebanon for thirty years and was originally suspected of having a hand in the elder Hariri’s killing, will now have full control of the government.
Hezbollah maintains they are working for the good of all Lebanese by having a prime minister who will protect their weapons, which they say are necessary to protect against Israel.
Discussion
No comments for “Hezbollah backed prime minister in Lebanon”