Lebanon is left without the right to vote in the UN for non-payment

The Lebanese government announced today that it will pay its arrears to the UN to regain the right to vote in the general Assemblya privilege he lost this week, which shows the serious economic crisis unleashed in the country at the end of 2019.

“After the contacts that were made with the Prime Minister (Najib Mikati) and the Finance Minister (Youssef Khalil), it became clear that the final payment process will be carried out directly in a way that preserves the rights of the Lebanon at the United Nations," the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, notified this week in a letter that nine member states are "in arrears in the payment of their financial quotas for the organization's expenses", with amounts greater than the total to be disbursed for the last two years, which implies the cessation of their right to vote in the General Assembly.

That body granted an exception to three of the countries indebted because it considered that the defaults were due to circumstances "out of their control", but it did remove the prerogative from Lebanon, the second with the most debts, only behind Venezuela, and which will have to pay more than 1.8 million dollars to recover their right to vote.

The nation of cedars is plunged into a grave economic crisis that has pushed almost 80% of the population into poverty and has caused the local currency to lose more than 90% of its value, reaching 50,000 units per dollar on the black market yesterday, compared to the 1,500 it was worth a year ago just three years.

State coffers have suffered heavily in the context of the depression, forcing the lifting of subsidies for many basic products, provoking constant strikes by civil servants whose salaries are barely worth any more and hitting public services in all sectors.

This same week, the Lebanese Cabinet of Ministers approved an extraordinary payment for the acquisition of fuel, just a few days after the end of the necessary reserves to maintain the two hours a day of electricity supply that the state company is capable of providing to the population .

Moreover, the disbursement will be made through lines of credit, while the country has been without a head of state for almost three months, more than seven with an interim government and two years without applying the key reforms demanded by the international community to help it stem the growing economic crisis.