BEIRUT: Lebanon’s business leaders warned Thursday of dire consequences on the country’s struggling economy if the yearlong presidential vacuum persists and the Cabinet remains paralyzed as a result of a widening rift over the appointment of senior military and security officers.

The Economic Committees, the country’s private sector, teamed up with labor unions to sound the alarm bell about the grave socio-economic consequences posed by the deepening political crisis as manifested in the repeated failure since last year to elect a president and the continued paralysis in the executive and legislative branches of power.

Speakers at a conference called by the Economic Committees pleaded with the rival political leaders to brush aside their differences and safeguard Lebanon by quickly electing a president in order to help revive the functioning of state institutions. They blamed the political class for the deterioration of the economic and financial conditions in Lebanon through “deliberate” paralysis of state institutions.

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