Roukoz Calls for 'Total' Govt. Change

MP Shamel Roukoz said he backs a total governmental change and that a new government of specialists must be formed as soon as possible to address the current situation in Lebanon, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Friday.

Protests in Lebanon entered week two and have morphed into a cross-sectarian street mobilisation against a political system seen as corrupt and broken.

Roukoz of the Strong Lebanon Bloc and the son-in-law of President Michel Aoun, said that forming a small government of “specialists is needed to get the country out of the current crisis, address the social situation, and launch an economic renaissance and fight corruption.”

Roukoz added: “Let the President and Prime Minister quickly choose distinctive names to get this going as it should.”

On Thursday, Aoun offered to meet the protesters whose week-old mobilisation to demand a complete overhaul of the political system has brought the country to a standstill.

But Aoun's first speech since the start of the unprecedented protest movement was met with disdain by demonstrators who see him and the entire political class as part of the problem, not the solution.

“Now there is no state for me, the government is not meeting, and decisions are not taken,” he said. “A new government can be formed in a matter of days to make a quick and clean change,” he added.