BEIRUT: Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri would support the government’s economic rescue plan if it was found to be positive.
“We will consider the government’s economic plan and if we found it positive, we will go along with it,” Hariri said the government endorsed a long-awaited economic and financial plan designed to avert the collapse of the ailing economy.
Lebanon’s prime minister Hassan Diab on Thursday said his government seek financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund as part of the economic and financial reform roadmap to deal with the country’s spiraling financial crisis, the worst since the 1975-90 civil war.
International donors have been demanding that Lebanon implement major economic reforms and anti-corruption steps to unlock billions in pledges made in 2018.
Diab earlier visited Hariri in his residence, and together with former prime ministers Najib Mikati, Fouad Siniora and Tammam Salam issued a statement supporting state reforms.
The former leaders however cautioned the government against using the slogan of fighting corruption as a way to take revenge against its opponents, saying this would plunge the country into a “serious national crisis.”
“The current government, chosen by the [Aoun] mandate and its political allies, has unfortunately turned into a tool for settling political scores and for revenge practices, and became a platform for throwing accusations and initiating conflicts in all directions, as well as a barrage behind which some personal maliciousness and presidential aspirations hide, unconcerned about the Taif Accord, the Constitution, the implementation of laws, or the interest of the Lebanese state,” the four former leaders said.
