BEIRUT—A top Lebanese cabinet minister resigned, the third in recent days, as the government teetered on the brink of collapse following pressure from protesters to account for last week’s deadly explosion in Beirut.
Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najm quit Monday, citing the conduct of the government following the explosion, according to the state-run National News Agency. Lebanon is entering a “critical care period,” she said in a statement carried by the agency.
A day earlier, Information Minister Manal Abdel Samad and Environment Minister Damianos Kattar resigned, citing the explosion.
A member of parliament, Henry Helo, also resigned Monday, joining a growing number of lawmakers and senior officials leaving office and fueling a sense of crisis around the government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab.
Lebanon’s government was already under intense pressure before the blast. A series of deep-rooted problems—from an economic tailspin to rolling power cuts to spreading hunger—has shaken the country to its core. The explosion is a culmination of crises that have underlined the government’s failure to tackle Lebanon’s most pressing challenges.
Over the weekend, thousands of demonstrators surged into central Beirut, marching on government buildings and briefly seizing control of a series of ministries, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, before security forces retook the buildings.
“The people demand the fall of the regime!” chanted a large crowd of demonstrators in downtown Beirut on Sunday night as some shot fireworks at ranks of security officers, who fired tear gas. Fires burned in the streets as protesters holding rocks beat metal railings and doors.
Foreign leaders are also applying pressure on the Lebanese government. French President Emmanuel Macron, who visited Beirut following the blast, has called for an international investigation of the explosion, and said that the United Nations, not the Lebanese government, would handle hundreds of millions of dollars in aid pledged by foreign countries at a virtual conference on Sunday.
Mr. Diab has said he would seek early elections and the government has vowed to investigate the causes of the explosion. Those promises have done little to calm the anger of thousands of Beirut residents whose homes and businesses were destroyed.
“It is better if they resign,” said Paula Yacoubian, an independent lawmaker who has resigned. “At least if we have vacuum then they cannot steal,” she told local TV.
The Lebanese public has blamed the country’s political leaders for the blast, which took place after a store of explosive chemicals ignited in the port of Beirut on Aug. 4, killing more than 150 people and injuring thousands of others.
The 2,750 metric tons of the explosive ammonium nitrate sat at the port for years after it was unloaded from a leaking ship. For many Lebanese, the explosion symbolized the government’s mismanagement and corruption that have plunged the country into a deep economic crisis in recent months.
Lebanese leaders have sought to deflect blame over the blast by endorsing a probe that has so far homed in on junior officials.
The government formed in early 2020 after the previous government dissolved late last year after a wave of protests calling for an overhaul of the political system.
Mr. Diab’s cabinet has sought to present itself as a group of technocratic officials independent of Lebanon’s sectarian political parties. However, the members of the cabinet, in their entirety, were selected by militant and political group Hezbollah and its allies.
If more than a third of the cabinet resigns, then the government will be rendered a caretaker government with limited powers, according to Chafic Masri, a Lebanese constitutional law expert. If more than 50% of lawmakers resign, then the chamber cannot meet to legislate, according to Mr. Masri.
The resignations of just a portion of the cabinet could trigger the collapse of the government. Under Lebanon’s constitution, which is designed to split power among the country’s various religious groups, the cabinet would lose its legal legitimacy if one isn’t represented, Mr. Masri said.
Lebanon’s political system is based on a power-sharing model that assigns executive and legislative roles to individuals based on their religious group. Parliament contains an even number of Christians and Muslims. Historically, the prime minister is always a Sunni, the speaker of parliament a Shiite and the president Christian.
Political parties have monopolized representation of religious groups and a handful dominate the political scene.
In 2011, pro-Hezbollah Shiite ministers resigned, toppling the government of Saad Hariri while he was meeting U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House.
Before the blast, Lebanon was experiencing its worst economic crisis in decades, along with an accelerating coronavirus outbreak and recurring antigovernment protests.
Lebanon’s ballooning debt, the banking sector’s collapse and a lockdown imposed to fight the virus have intensified the country’s economic troubles. The poor and middle class were hit hardest by the crisis, with many going hungry as sections of the country plunged into darkness due to long power cuts. Lebanon is also suffering from hyperinflation and soaring unemployment.
Donor countries pledged €252.7 million ($297.8 million) to aid Lebanon at Sunday’s conference. The U.S., Brazil, Australia, Germany, the U.K., China and Japan all took part in the U.N.-backed summit.
The aftermath of the explosion at the seaport of Beirut.
Photo: Bilal Hussein/Associated PressWrite to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com
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