(Beirut) Thousands of people gathered in Beirut on Wednesday to commemorate the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and call on his son, Saad, to return to politics.
Waving the blue flag of the Future Movement, the formation led by Saad Hariri, the demonstrators cheered the latter as he paid his respects, in the pouring rain, at his father’s grave in the center of Beirut.
“We are demanding the return of Saad Hariri to Lebanon so that security and stability can return,” Dina Hleihel, 55, a demonstrator, told AFP.
“All of Lebanon is today for the return of Saad Hariri to politics, because he is capable of saving Lebanon and attracting international support,” assured Mahmoud Hammoud, 32 years old.
On Wednesday, Saad Hariri said that when he left politics, “the international community demanded change in Lebanon and I volunteered to leave.” He assured that he maintained his decision for the moment and that he “was not thinking” of a return. “Now is not the time,” he said in an interview with Saudi television Al-Arabiya.
Saad Hariri was propelled onto the political scene after the assassination of his father, but resigned under the weight of popular pressure during the uprising which broke out in Lebanon in October 2019.
In 2022, he announced his withdrawal from political life and boycotted the legislative elections which were then held.
Economic collapse
While he enjoyed Saudi support, his relationship deteriorated in recent years with the kingdom, which criticized him for being too accommodating with the pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement, a heavyweight in Lebanese politics.
Having since settled in the United Arab Emirates, Saad Hariri, still considered at 53 years old as the main Sunni Muslim leader in Lebanon, returned to Beirut on Sunday for the commemoration of the assassination of his father.
Since his voluntary exile, the Sunni community, from which the prime minister comes in accordance with the sharing of power, has found itself marginalized and its deputies divided between the antagonistic camps of the country.
The divisions between the camp of the influential Shiite Hezbollah and that of its adversaries are paralyzing political life in Lebanon. Without a president since November 2022, the country is led by a resigned government, while the country is experiencing an unprecedented economic collapse.
Prime Minister twice between 1992 and 2004, Rafic Hariri was killed in Beirut on February 14, 2005, during the Syrian domination of Lebanon, in a suicide van bomb attack which also left 21 dead.
In 2022, the United Nations Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) sentenced two Hezbollah members in absentia to life in prison, following a long trial.
reference: www.lapresse.ca