Lebanon’s PM Hariri resigns after weeks of protests

Bloomberg

Lebanon’s PM Saad Hariri stepped down on Tuesday after two weeks of anti-government protests descended into violence.
“I won’t hide that I reached a dead end and it’s time for a major shock to confront the crisis,” Hariri said in a televised address. “I’m going to the
presidential palace in Baabda to submit my government’s resignation to the president and to the Lebanese people everywhere in response to their will.”
Hariri’s resignation came hours after supporters of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah party attacked demonstrators in central Beirut and destroyed their tents.
Live television footage showed hundreds of men throwing rocks at protesters who had blocked a major Beirut intersection and beating them with sticks and fists.
The mob then descended on the main protest area in the capital tearing down tents and setting them ablaze while warning that they would not allow their political leaders — Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and his ally, parliament speaker Nabih Berri — to be criticised or insulted.
The show of violence by Lebanon’s two main Shiite Muslim parties is a turning point in the uprising, which protesters say has transcended for the first time the sectarian and party divisions that tend to dominate Lebanese politics.
The stakes are high for Lebanon, which straddles the region’s geopolitical fault-lines and has often been a proxy battleground for the Middle East’s broader conflicts.
The 15-year civil war ended in 1990 but still haunts a country where the warlords became the rulers and have remained in power ever since. It is this political class that protesters accuse of entrenched corruption that has brought the economy to the brink of crisis.
Celebrations broke out in central Beirut after the announcement, with protesters thanking Hariri for taking the first step to address popular demands.