Beirut: Al-Nah, Lebanon’s oldest newspaper, appeared on the newsstands completely blank on Thursday to protest a political deadlock and economic woes in the tiny Mediterranean country, international news agencies reported.
Thugh five months have passed after the elections followed by unending wrangling about power sharing, premier-designate Saad Hariri has not been able to form a new government, putting a precious $11-billion aid package at risk.
An-Nahar, which was founded in 1933, published eight blank pages in print and linkless white boxes on its main page online, posting headlines but no news items.
“People are tired and An-Nahar is tired of writing up your pretexts and repeated empty promises,” editor-in-chief Nayla al-Tueni said at a press conference in Beirut.
“God knows how long we will wait to see” a decision on a cabinet line-up, she said.
A new government would be able to sign off on billions of dollars in aid pledged at a conference in April, notably to help boost the country’s ailing infrastructure.
But political parties in the small country have been locked in dispute over the composition of a future cabinet.
“The situation is no longer bearable,” Tueni said, but also making it clear that the paper had no intention to take sids in the political equations. The blank issue was aimed at expressing “our deep moral sense of fresponsibility as a press institution over the disastrous state of the country”, she said.