Lebanese PM announces government’s resignation

Lebanon’s besieged government has fallen one week after a cataclysmic explosion destroyed Beirut port, with the country’s prime minister, Hassan Diab, claiming the disaster was the result of endemic corruption.

Diab announced the resignation of the government after more than a third of ministers quit their posts, forcing Diab himself to resign.

Diab, who has been prime minister for nine months, was due to notify the president, Michel Aoun, who was expected to accept his resignation.

“I said that corruption is rooted in every part of the state,” he said. “But I found out that corruption is greater than the state.

“A political class is using all their dirty tricks to prevent real change. The more we tried to get to them, the bigger the walls became.

“This disaster is the result of chronic corruption,” said Diab.
Decades of incompetence and graft underpinned a decision to keep a stockpile of close to 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate at the port and store it with combustible substances.

The explosion has cast a spotlight on weak governance in the Mediterranean state, which was already reeling from an economic implosion that threatened the livelihoods of millions of people.

The Guardian