'We Can’t Fail', Aoun Tells Cabinet

President Michel Aoun on Thursday warned that the government should not fail in addressing the country’s accumulating crises.

“I’m the head of the state and I represent the dignity of the Lebanese and the state’s prestige, and we all represent the executive authority and any failure for us is a failure for all authorities, that's why it is prohibited to fail and we won't fail,” Aoun said at the beginning of a Cabinet session in Baabda.

“The time today is not for overbidding, but rather for resolving problems, especially the economic ones, and the first step should be finalizing the state budget,” the president added.

Commenting on the latest street protests over the economic crisis and the exchange rate fears, Aoun said: “The right to demonstrate does not stand for the right to hurl insults and the freedom of the press does not mean the freedom of launching malicious rumors that harm the country.”