Lebanese Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Joumblatt.( Credit: AFP file)
BEIRUT — Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Joumblatt blamed Lebanon's political deadlock on local leaders waiting for foreign intervention, according to a Tweet posted Thursday.
"Everyone is waiting for the password to come from abroad, which has not yet arrived," Joumblatt tweeted, as the country — in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis — has had no president since the end of former head of state Michel Aoun's term on Oct. 31, and no fully empowered cabinet since legislative elections in May.
Joumblatt's comments come after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah earlier this week called on Lebanese political parties not to wait for foreign intervention to solve the crisis.
Representatives from France, the United States, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are expected to gather in Paris in mid-January to discuss Lebanon.
The PSP leader also accused the "bigger [political] forces" of hindering “any ministerial meeting to run people’s affairs.”
Lebanon's caretaker cabinet held an unofficial meeting in December at the Grand Serail, chaired by caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, to decide on a "mechanism" to continue managing the country's affairs without a president. A previous cabinet meeting that month sparked backlash from the Free Patriotic Movement, the party founded by Aoun, who accuse Mikati of wrongly taking on certain presidential powers.
Joumblatt also tweeted that some people in power are challenging “the budget, leading to absolute tampering.”
The 2022 budget was published in November, more than seven weeks after it passed Parliament and with only a month and a half left of the year. As many observers feared, the new budget introduced retroactive tax measures. The budget was the object of an appeal before the Constitutional Council by Forces of Change MPs.