Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun on Wednesday accepted the government’s resignation, but asked it to stay on until a new cabinet is formed, AFP reports. Aoun said the measure followed the constitutional provision for cases in which the government steps down, his office said in a statement.
PM Saad al-Hariri announced his cabinet’s resignation on Tuesday, the 13th day of a wave of protests triggered by a proposed tax on calls via free phone applications.
That proposal was then scrapped, but the demonstrations swelled into a broad cross-sectarian call for an end to a political system viewed as corrupt and inefficient. Many of the country’s ruling elite hail from political parties or families that have been in power since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
It is unclear what a new government would look like and whether it would include independent technocrats, as demanded by the demonstrators.
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