Hezbollah warns of chaos in Lebanon, rejects protesters’ demands to bring down govt

Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement warned on Friday that a power vacuum could tip the country into civil war, suggesting that adversaries were seeking to exploit an unprecedented wave of demonstrations to provoke conflict, according to Reuters.

Lebanon has been swept by more than a week of nationwide protests against a political elite accused of corruption.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, whose movement is part of PM Saad al-Hariri’s coalition government, urged his followers to stay away from the protests. Nasrallah praised the protest movement for forcing the government to agree a state budget without new taxes and “unprecedented” reforms including draft laws to lift banking secrecy, recover looted wealth and fight corruption.

He reiterated Hezbollah’s rejection of the resignation of the Hariri government and any move to topple Hezbollah’s Christian ally, President Michel Aoun, saying this would leave a void.