Report: 'Silent' Crisis Emerges to Public between Once Allies Hariri-Jumblat

A “silent” crisis lingering since April between Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat has exploded in public as the two men indirectly traded corruption accusations, al-Akhbar daily reported on Thursday.

The crisis began first in April when Hariri supported the so-called qualification “sectarian” parliamentary electoral law, proposed by Foreign Minister and Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil, which Jumblat criticized as a format that marginalizes his role and the Druze community, said the daily.

The two men have been at loggerheads trading thorny comments without any naming each other.

Three days ago, Jumblat asked in a tweet reportedly referring to Hariri without naming him: “Why don't all the tenders pass through the (Central Inspection Bureau's) Tender Department so as to prevent newly bankrupts from looting the State?”

The tweet was enough to tarnish relations between the men who were once allies, and to “turn Jumblat into a rival that the prime minister would fight till the end,” said the daily.

The Prime Minister replied to Jumblat's comments without naming him, he said during a Ramadan Iftar: “Yes I am one of the newly bankrupts but I have and will never take a penny from the country. I will fight those trying to make gains out of the country,” as he indirectly accused the PSP chief of corruption.

“A new group has started giving us lessons in corruption as if they have not been corrupt before,” said Hariri.