BEIRUT — After a five-year absence that he spent in France and Saudi Arabia, former Future Movement head and Prime Minister Saad Hariri returned to Lebanon in February for a ceremony commemorating the 11th anniversary of Rafik Hariri’s assassination on Feb. 14. He then announced that he will stay in Beirut.

In January 2011, 11 ministers — a third of Hariri’s Cabinet — resigned, leaving a caretaker government under Article 69 of the Lebanese Constitution. The article stipulates that the government shall be considered resigned if it loses more than a third of its members specified in the decree of its formation.

The resignation included 10 opposition ministers, including the ministers of Hezbollah, the Amal Movement and the Change and Reform Movement, in addition to Adnan Sayyed Hussein, a minister aligned with then-President Michel Suleiman. The resignation came as the Special Tribunal for Lebanon was preparing to issue an indictment implicating Hezbollah in Hariri’s assassination.

Making the situation worse, Hariri rejected a call for an emergency Cabinet session to discuss the expected indictment while awaiting the outcome of Saudi-Syrian monitoring of the dispute between the March 8 Coalition, which demanded that the government stop cooperating with the tribunal, and the March 14 Coalition, which supports the investigation.