{"id":13659,"date":"2018-09-02T22:28:13","date_gmt":"2018-09-02T22:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13659"},"modified":"2018-09-02T22:28:13","modified_gmt":"2018-09-02T22:28:13","slug":"lebanon-at-the-crossroads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=13659","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon at the crossroads"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nDUBAI: Four months after Lebanon\u2019s general election, any hopes Prime Minister-elect Saad Al-Hariri held of easing his way into office have been dashed following warnings of a crippling political stalemate in government and claims the country is facing economic collapse.
With a cabinet yet to be formed, Hariri heads into the fall all but powerless to address the economic decline \u2014 a situation some observers have described as a \u201cvicious circle.\u201d
This summer, Moody\u2019s, the global rating agency, gave Lebanon\u2019s economy a \u201cLow (+)\u201d grading due to \u201cthe deterioration in the regional economic and political environment.\u201d
An article in The Economist magazine late last week was even more downbeat, saying Lebanon\u2019s economy was on the brink of collapse.\"\"
\u201cSince 2011, the lack of investment in infrastructure and the absence of economic reforms have weakened the country\u2019s competitiveness, and would likely prevent Lebanon from returning to previously high real GDP growth, even if political risks were to subside,\u201d the Moody\u2019s report said.
While reports suggested the economy is facing a full-blown crisis, government officials believe that the country is not there yet.
\u201cWe\u2019re passing through challenging times,\u201d former Lebanese minster of finance Raya Al-Hassan told Arab News. \u201cWe\u2019re in a huge slump. All the economic indicators point to a downturn in economic activity. All the real economy sectors are suffering and witnessing a downturn.
\u201cWe are in some sort of a recession. A lot of these sectors are not growing; growth is not registering beyond 2 percent annually, and if this situation persists, it will create a vicious circle that will be hard to break,\u201d she said.
\"\"Political instability and sectarian strife have plagued Lebanon for years, with a decades-long civil war and the assassination of several of its leaders, including Hariri\u2019s father, Rafic Hariri.
Recently, attempts to form a government have been deadlocked since Hezbollah and its political allies have secured a cabinet majority of more than 70 of the 128 seats during this year\u2019s parliamentary elections at the expense of Hariri\u2019s Future Movement.
Currently, there are 30 ministerial positions that are split equally among Christians and Muslims at 15 each, with further splitting among sects within these two main religions. And with no clear criteria on how these ministries will be allocated, the stalemate between political parties and representatives over the allocation of power could well continue until the end of the year.
\u201cIt\u2019s an internal problem that has to do with holding power \u2026 in principle they (political parties) are asking for such power because they think they deserve it after they did well in the elections, but this is not the real reason,\u201d political analyst Amine Ammouriyye said.
Ammouriyye believes the main factor \u201cis the decision from outside Lebanon. For example, Hezbollah, who won the elections, now has the chance to opt for better relations with Syria and is among those asking for more formal relations than before,\u201d he said.
\u201cInternally, it\u2019s all about power and, externally, it\u2019s about the negotiation with Syria,\u201d he said.
With politicians and foreign powers unable to put their agendas aside, Lebanon\u2019s economy continues to falter, a downward spiral that was brought on by the outbreak of the Syrian conflict in 2011. Economic growth plummeted from a solid 9 percent at the time and has hovered around 1.1 percent for the past three years. Public debt stands at $82 billion, equivalent to 150 percent of gross domestic product, the third-highest world-wide after Japan and Greece.
At the Economic Conference for Development through Reforms with the Private Sector (CEDRE) in Paris in the spring, international donors pledged $11 billion to boost the economy, with a focus on improving Lebanon\u2019s ailing infrastructure. In exchange, Lebanon promised reforms, including tougher measures to fight corruption and reduce budget deficits.\"\"
\u201cThe lifeline presented to us is a real opportunity to come out of this slump,\u201d Al-Hassan said.
But if the government is formed and the reforms are not taken, it will be \u201charder and harder for the Lebanese economy to come out of the dire situation it is in now.
\u201cThis will result in huge unemployment if we don\u2019t address it as soon as possible,\u201d the former minister said.
\u201cWe are reaching a new milestone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DUBAI: Four months after Lebanon\u2019s general election, any hopes Prime Minister-elect Saad Al-Hariri held of easing his way into office have been dashed following warnings of a crippling political stalemate in government and claims the country is facing economic collapse.With a cabinet yet to be formed, Hariri heads into the fall all but powerless to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":13660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}