Mikati Bites The Bullet, Resigns
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced his resignation, in a move many attribute to his government's inability to hold parliamentary elections on schedule, writes Elie Hajj.
Politicians following recent developments have told Al-Monitor that the real, substantive cause that drove Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati to resign was his government's inability to hold parliamentary elections on schedule.
Since Thursday evening, the now-resigned Prime Minister Mikati had been dropping repeated hints that he planned to take a “major step.” But few believed that he would actually resign. Skeptics and acquaintances pointed to prior episodes that had demonstrated the prime minister was a first-class maneuverer, possessing an extraordinary ability to absorb political shocks and convulsions while still retaining remarkably calm nerves. So much so that MP Farid Makari, vice-president of the Lebanese Parliament and former friend of Mikati’s, once dubbed him “a hypnotist.”
