GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

The Real Reason Behind a Political Purge in Lebanon? Saudi Arabia

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Hilal Khashan
Board of Contributors

Jun 4, 2018 | 07:00 GMT

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri greets supporters in Beirut on Nov. 22, 2017.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, shown here greeting supporters in Beirut on Nov. 22, 2017, has fired many of his political party's high-ranking officials after its dismal performance in parliamentary elections on May 6. But the purge is also an attempt to try to get back in Saudi Arabia's good graces.

(STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

  • Lebanon's new electoral law, which allocates parliamentary seats according to the proportion of the vote a party receives, cost Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri's Future Movement party about one-third of its seats in the latest elections, as projected.
  • Nevertheless, al-Hariri launched an investigation and a subsequent purge in his party, ostensibly in response to its dismal performance in the vote.
  • Contrary to the prime minister's stated reasons for the reorganization, al-Hariri probably undertook the shake-up to ease Saudi Arabia's concerns over his party's ties with Hezbollah.

Less than a week after parliamentary elections on May 6, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri launched a purge to get his party back on track. He fired officials and dissolved Future Movement's parliamentary affairs department and elections machinery. At the same time, al-Hariri's cousin, Nader al-Hariri, the architect of Future Movement's alliance with President Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, resigned as his chief of staff. Saad al-Hariri undertook the reshuffle ostensibly because of the party's dismal performance in the parliamentary elections. But that's only part of the story. The reorganization was also an attempt by the prime minister to get back in Saudi Arabia's good graces....

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