At face value, a change in leaderships seems like the right move for Lebanon. But forming a new government brings forth a whole new set of complications. For one, Lebanon has been torn asunder by rival factions since the end of the civil war in the 1990’s.
One such faction is Hezbollah, which threw its support behind the Diab government from the very beginning. With the Diab government acting as caretakers until a new government is formed, all of Lebanon’s disparate factions will have to come to the table yet again to form another government.
It seems highly unlikely that a fresh government will change anything in Lebanon as factionalism continues to thrive. If Diab’s claim that the entire Lebanese political apparatus is corrupt from top to bottom is true, then any new leadership derived from the same system is bound to be tainted with corruption too.
This presents a serious problem for the Lebanese system, with increasing public demands that real changes be made. Lebanese authorities have entered into a frenzy of finger pointing and laying blame at each other’s feet since the explosion, with multiple individuals currently under arrest.
