The Maronite patriarch accuses the ruling class of selfishness and personal interests. The aim of undermining the nation "to get one’s hands on what's left". We need an executive composed of "independent figures" to repel the onslaught of "internal and external forces". Greek Orthodox Metropolitan: they are dragging Lebanon "to the bottom of a chasm".
Beirut (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Lebanese Christian leaders are once again attacking the country’s ruling class, accusing it of selfishness and personal interests, which aim to bring down the very idea of the nation in order to divide up "what remains".
Following the visit of the French President’s special envoy Patrick Durel, on a mission to Beirut on behalf of Emmanuel Macron, the Maronite Patriarch Card Beshara Raï points the finger at those who manoeuvre to "bring down the Great Lebanon, to put their hands" on the remainder. The cardinal says the mission of the transalpine diplomat is a last attempt "to bring politicians" completely deaf to the needs of the people to reason.
In his homily for Sunday Mass, the Maronite primate attacked the leaders who would like to "change the face" of the nation and insists on the creation of an executive composed "in full, not only in part, of independent figures".
"This insistence - he added - in wanting to block the formation of a new executive and to ignore the interests of the people and the country are part of a project that aims to bring down Great Lebanon in order to get our hands on what remains".
The country, he adds, "is at the mercy of internal and external forces who want to attack it for personal, confessional and international interests".
Lastly, even without naming them, the cardinal addresses the "saboteurs from different political groups" accusing them of not wanting "a civil state separate from religion", a nation "with different religions and cultures, as Patriarch Élias Hoyek had envisioned it".
In mid-October, President Michel Aoun entrusted the mandate to the already three-time Prime Minister, in an attempt to break the deadlock and encourage the birth of a new executive. The crisis experienced in the last year is only one of the many elements of difficulty affecting politics, the economy and the institutions themselves.
Covid-19 and the double explosion at Beirut port were the final blow to this already precarious situation, pushing 55% of the population below the poverty line in a context of continuous emergency. The extreme political and social precariousness has triggered an increase in suicides and a rush to buy the few drugs left on the shelves of pharmacies, while the hospitals are in catastrophic conditions.
During the mass celebrated yesterday in the church of Saint George of the Greek Orthodox, Metropolitan Élias Audi attacked the ruling class for the management of the government dossier and the post-explosion interventions at the port of Beirut. "Those responsible - he said in the homily - are only concerned with themselves" and with negotiating this or that ministry, but the time has come to "stop beating around the bush" to form an executive verse. "It is not too late - he added, after having listed the many failures of the ruling class - to get back on track and understand that you are bringing Lebanon to the bottom of a chasm" from which it risks not recovering.