Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri will not run in May's elections. (Credit: Dalati & Nohra)
BEIRUT – Former three-time Prime Minister and leader of the Future Movement Saad Hariri announced that he is “stepping aside from political life” and that he is not going to run in May’s parliamentary elections.
Here's what we know:
• In a speech in front of his house, Beit al Wasat, Hariri also asked “my family of Future Movement” to do the same, and not run in the upcoming elections.
• “I can’t bear that a number of the Lebanese, whom I would only remain in politics to serve, now consider me one of the authority figures responsible for the catastrophe,” Hariri said in reference to the economic crisis, “and [as] the preventer of any new representation that would produce solutions for our country and our people.”
• Hariri returned to Beirut last Thursday, after several months in the United Arab Emirates. Hariri withdrew from political life last July and left for the UAE after failing to form a government after almost 10 months of cabinet formation negotiations.
• Following his return Hariri held a series of meetings with Lebanese politicians, including Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Joumblatt, as well as presiding over a meeting of his parliamentary bloc.
• Over the weekend supporters of Hariri organized car convoys in Akkar and Beirut demanding he run in elections.
• Hariri has been out of office since resigning from his third term as Prime Minister in October 2019 following the massive protests of Oct. 17.