Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun said he was working on “forming a government of full powers”, which would assume all of the presidential authorities if no agreement was reached on his successor at the end of the presidential tenure on Oct. 31.
“Lebanon needs political and sovereign reform, in addition to structural changes in the system,” Aoun said, pointing to “constitutional chaos under a caretaker government and a newly elected parliament with divergent affiliations.”
The Lebanese president stressed that it was difficult to manage the state with the presence of “three heads.”
He referred to efforts to obstruct the investigations into the explosion of the port of Beirut and into the responsibility of the Banque du Liban for the current monetary crisis.
Aoun was addressing a delegation of European Union ambassadors, headed by Ambassador Ralph Tarraf, who underlined the importance of Lebanon implementing reforms and respecting constitutional deadlines, in particular the presidential elections.
“Political and economic reasons come at the forefront of the factors of the crisis that Lebanon is currently witnessing,” Aoun said, pointing to “the corruption that plagued (the system) that was ruling in the past, in addition to mistakes committed in managing the deposits in the Central Bank.”
“Lebanon today needs political and sovereign reforms, in addition to structural changes in the system,” the president remarked.
For his part, Tarraf said: “More than three years have passed since the economic system started to decline and more than two and a half years since Lebanon failed to pay its debts and the government submitted a financial recovery plan, while the Lebanese decision-makers are still unable to implement the necessary measures to get Lebanon out of the crisis.”
French Ambassador Anne Grillo said that her country had stressed, since the CEDRE conference, on the need to adopt new rules for work.
“We are all witnessing the decline of the Lebanese institutions… As members of the EU, we are ready to help Lebanon and assume our role in the international community in this context, but in return we must be able to convince the concerned authorities of the commitment of the Lebanese authorities to the required reforms,” she told Aoun.
