Close to the edge?

ENAR

It’s already evident, barring a miracle, that there will be no “Beirut I”, let alone a “Paris-II”, conference this February to help Lebanon face its increasingly ominous economic tribulations. In fact, amid the political schisms of the past six weeks, so little attention has been paid to the country’s financial situation, that Finance Minister Jihad Azour had to sound the alarm in late January, declaring: “We have succeeded, within our capacities, to limit the damage, even to improve the [economic] situation; but this cannot last indefinitely in this unstable context.” Yawning divide Azour was right, but what no official will publicly admit is that there is no common vision in Lebanon today on what type of capitalist culture must guide economic reform. The country is broadly split between a parliamentary majority that tends to subscribe to a liberal, private-sector propelled ideal peddled by the late Rafik Hariri and his successors;