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The Shi’ite Hezbollah group and its allies will step up a campaign of protest and disruption next week to try to topple the Lebanese government by paralysing the country, a senior opposition politician said. The move is an attempt to break a deadlock that has defied mediation efforts and fuelled Sunni-Shi’ite tensions. “The opposition is putting the final touches to the second phase of its campaign. Things will start moving next week,” said the opposition politician. Protesters have camped outside the heavily guarded office of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in central Beirut for the past five weeks to try to force him to concede veto power to the opposition in a unity government or call an election.
Siniora has stubbornly resisted, even though his cabinet had already been weakened by the resignation of six ministers from Hezbollah and its allies in November.
The impasse has hurt Lebanon’s recovery from the July-August war with Israel and raised fears of instability in a land where Christians, Druze, Sunnis and Shi’ites coexist uneasily. “All political and diplomatic efforts are deadlocked,” the opposition politician said. “There is no option for the opposition but to step up pressure on the authorities, who are proceeding as if there is nothing wrong ... The moves will culminate in a stage where most of the country would be paralysed.”