PM admits govt. ‘incompetent’ but won’t quit over fear of ‘plunging Lebanon into vacuum’

Prime Minister Tammam Salam admitted Tuesday that his government is “ incompetent” but stressed that he will not resign out of concern that the country would plunge into total political vacuum in the absence of a president.

“As the prime minister of Lebanon, I have not hesitated to say that the government is fruitless and incompetent, but what’s stopping me from acting accordingly is only the ethical and national responsibility and the fear of plunging the country into the abyss of vacuum,” said Salam at an iftar banquet for the Dar al-Aytam association in Beirut.

His development comes  few days after the Phalange  Party decided to withdraw its ministers from the government and accused it of corruption and failure in addressing the country’s affairs.

“The current situation in the country is alarming because the State is suppressed, its prestige is eroded and its decision on many issue is usurped,” Salam added.

He lamented that “a lot of politicians have lost the ability to differentiate between noble national politics and narrow-minded practices that are only aimed at serving partisan interests regardless of the costs.”

Salam also warned that “the stability we have enjoyed in the past five years is not an infinite and irreversible situation unless we seek to immunize it.”

“Perform your national duty and immediately elect a president so that we restore regularity in institutions and revive the political life and so that we embark on building our country and protecting it from the repercussions of the regional events,” the PM added.

Salam also noted that two pillars have prevented the collapse of the country – the military and security institutions and the economic and financial sectors, “especially the business and banking sectors.”

Earlier in June , the Lebanese parliament failed again and for the 40th time in a row to elect a president to replace Michel Suleiman whose term ended on May 25 , 2014.

As in the past sessions the parliament was unable to reach a quorum because the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group and its ally MP Michel Aoun’s Change and Reform bloc MPs boycotted the session, because they could not reportedly guarantee Aoun’s election as a president

Speaker Nabih Berri a key ally of Hezbollah postponed the election to  Thursday  June 23, but nothing is expected to happen today