Lebanon's national unity government collapsed on Wednesday after the withdrawal of Hezbollah ministers and allies from the Cabinet. The move follows months of disagreement over a United Nations-backed probe into the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Ten MPs from the Hezbollah's 8 March coalition announced their resignation and independent Shia MP Adnan Hussein made the same move shortly afterward, causing the 11-member shortfall required for the dissolution of Prime Minister Saad Hariri's 30-strong cabinet. Energy Minister Jibran Bassil announced the resignations as Hariri held talks with US President Barack Obama in Washington. “Because of the other party's inability to surpass American pressures, and in order to make way for a new government, the assembled ministers present their resignations and ask the president [Michel Sleiman] to speedily remedy the situation,” Bassil told reporters. Adnan, who belonged to Sleiman's independent cabinet bloc, said the current government had failed to address the needs of the public. “I declare my resignation from the cabinet in order to allow constitutional institutions to form a new government that meets the ambitions of the Lebanese in terms of national unity and global stability,” Adnan said in a statement carried by the state-run National News Agency. Lebanon's administration has been divided for months over the issue of Special Tribunal for Lebanon “false witnesses,” which critics say misled investigators and should therefore be referred to the Judicial Council – Lebanon's highest judicial authority – to stand trial. The 14 March coalition, for its part, maintains that those suspected of giving false testimony to the Tribunal officials should be dealt with via regular judiciary channels. The elder Hariri was killed on Valentine's Day, 2005, by a massive truck bomb in downtown Beirut. The Tribunal established to try the assassins is expected to issue indictments against Hezbollah members, although party head Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to “cut off the hand” of anyone targeting the resistance. The assassination, blamed at the time on Damascus, prompted the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after three decades of military presence. Disagreement over STL indictments and the so-called false witnesses, which the court's detractors say led to the detention of four pro-Syrian generals for four years, has paralyzed Lebanon's political institutions. The Cabinet last met on 15 December, and urgent issues such as chronic water and electricity shortages have gone unaddressed for months. The collapse of the government is the worst crisis in Lebanon since 2008, when an agreement reached in Qatar achieved a truce to end sectarian clashes that had killed 81 people and brought Lebanon to the brink of a renewal of its 15-year civil war, which ended in 1990. BM
