Opinion analysis by Fouad El Amine, Staff Writer

April 14th, 2020

Following the resignation of Saad Hariri from his position as prime minister of Lebanon on the 29th of October, due to national and international public pressure and mounting unrest, intense debate over who to appoint to the newly vacant position culminated in the nomination of Hassan Diab: an academic, whose background lays in engineering, and who previously held the post of Minister of Education and Higher Education in the 2011 Mikati Government. Forming a government under a technocratic umbrella, with parliamentary support from Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, the Free Patriotic Movement, and their allies -  the newly formed, technocratic government took office on the 21st of January 2020.                                                                                               

The loyalties of this cabinet have been (and continue to be) thoroughly debated by multiple sides of the political spectrum, with some claiming it is merely a government controlled by the “March 8th” Coalition, with few going as far as calling it “Hezbollah’s government” or “Monochrome Government”, referring to Hezbollah’s place as both the strongest political party and the cornerstone within the Coalition it belongs to. On the other hand, some praise the new government as the fruit of the will of the people and the first of its kind.

This article will not discuss nor critique the factors that led to the formation of the new government. Neither will it attempt to discuss where its loyalties may or may not lay; rather, it will underline the measures and policies said government took in order to overcome the challenges facing it. Therefore, we must highlight Diab's government reaction to the two crises it has faced so far, namely: the worsening economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

 Starting with the latter, when looking at the number of infected people per capita, Lebanon is currently among some of the least affected countries by the disease. While the slowdown of economic activity caused by the ongoing socio-politico-economic crises might have played a part in limiting the spread of the virus, social distancing policies undertaken by the government, such as the closing of restaurants and Cafes, as well as  the implementation of a curfew between 7PM and 5AM every day, and alternate days for cars etc, have vastly succeeded in reducing daily social interaction, in turn limiting the spread of the disease. Another factor that was just as, if not more central in the fight against Covid-19 in Lebanon, has been the efforts of the public health sector, which has surprisingly demonstrated its capacity in keeping public hospitals open and free of charge to covid-19 patients and maintaining isolation from other patients, all the while facing an increasing number of cases, despite a lack of cooperation demonstrated by prominent private hospitals.

In regards to the financial; economic; and monetary crisis, the new government is failing in properly addressing the issue, despite it being a problem that it inherited from its resigned predecessor. Diab’s government seems to have settled for capital control measures aimed at delaying the inevitable exhaustion of US dollars from the Lebanese economy, with no real plan as to what it will do when it eventually occurs, or to replace the politico-economic system that led the economy down this road in the first place. Since the formation of the current government, there hasn’t been a single reform aimed at making the Lebanese economy more productive. One might even say that, as far as the economy is concerned, there has been no significant nor appropriate change in attitude between the last two governments, only an escalation in responsive measures, or the lack thereof, due to the worsening of the crisis overtime.

To conclude, it would seem that as far as the  pandemic goes, the current government has been able to mobilise the resources available to it in order to limit the spread of the disease, and the results were impressive considering the limited means that were available. On the other hand, the Diab government has until now shown itself to be incompetent in addressing the roots of the economic; monetary; and financial crisis that is currently hitting the country.