How Corruption Ruined Lebanon

Lebanon’s authorities have failed to address a massive economic and political crisis that endangered citizens’ access to vital services, including health care. Lebanon’s politicians have done little to stop living standards from plummeting and have not responded to protesters’ concerns about the worsening economic crisis.

The protesters called for the downfall of the government and an end to corruption and demanded living wages, better healthcare, electricity and other essential services they have been denied. Instead, they, and the rest of the population who did not protest, saw their salaries slashed, bank deposits evaporate and the price of basic foodstuffs double.

The protesters, fed up with inequality and worsening living conditions, have blamed both Salameh and Diab and the entire political system of Lebanon, including nearly every politician and political party the country has ever known.

This sentiment is echoed, albeit in more polite tones, in the dozens of articles and reports about Lebanon’s malaise published over recent months by Western media outlets and think-tanks. The culprit behind “endemic corruption”, they often report, is similarly singular and simplistic: the political class, the ruling elite or some variation thereof.