Collective Action
Demonstrators shut state institutions in Baalbeck and Sidon
BEIRUT: Hundreds of protesters marched through the streets of Antelias and Beirut Thursday to call for early elections and for the government to take action as the U.S. dollar-Lebanese pound exchange exceeded LL2,600.
In Beirut, protesters blocked the "Ring Bridge" Thursday evening, a site that became one of the mainstays of Lebanon's 141-day-old national uprising.
They had marched from the Central Bank in Hamra and briefly held a sit-in outside the Association of Banks in Lebanon in Gemmayze.
“Who will protect us if the government can’t protect us? What are we waiting for?” said a woman to local media.
Prime Minister Hassan Diab said Monday that the state was no longer capable of protecting the Lebanese people. He added that the Cabinet was “shackled with sectarian restrictions and chains of corruption.”
“Do we have to beg for our money outside of banks? They have robbed us,” another woman said in a televised interview.
In Antelias, people marched through the streets under the slogan "no confidence" and demanded early elections.
“The Lebanese people are hungry. This is the voice of every woman who can’t feed her children,” said a woman in a televised interview to local media.
Protests have gradually been picking up over the last week as public anger grows about the deteriorating economic situation and living conditions in the country.
Demonstrators shut state institutions in Baalbeck, Sidon and Halba Thursday morning, and blocked roads the previous evening in Tripoli, Ghobeiri and Zouk Mosbeh, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Pressure is mounting on the government to come up with a viable economic rescue plan that sets out how it will overcome Lebanon’s crushing public debt. The International Monetary Fund estimates that this debt stands at around 155 percent of GDP.
While the government prevaricates about how it will deal with this crisis, the Lebanese pound has tumbled repeatedly.
Traders were exchanging the pound for around LL2,625 to the dollar Thursday morning, a decline of more than 40 percent in value as compared to the official dollar exchange rate of LL1505.7.