Diplomats in Beirut were surprised when outgoing Prime Minister Saad Hariri requested that President Michel Aoun postpone the consultations on a new PM “in order to garner bigger backing,” for his nomination, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat reported on Tuesday.

Abbas Ali spends most of his free time camped out in Tahrir Square — the epicenter of Iraq's anti-government protests — going home only at 3 a.m. to catch few hours of sleep, change his clothes and check on his family. He is determined to stay in the square until the end, whatever that may be.

Ali was only 13 when the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein. He only vaguely remembers life under the dictator. What he knows clearly is that life in post-Saddam Iraq is a daily, often humiliating struggle for survival.

Supporters of Lebanon's two main Shiite groups Hizbulah and AMAL clashed with security forces and set fires to cars in the capital early Tuesday, apparently angered by a video circulating online that showed a man insulting Shiite figures.

The Presidency on Monday snapped back at al-Mustaqbal Movement and caretaker Premier Saad Hariri’s press office, stressing that President Michel Aoun does not need constitutional “lessons” from anyone.

“Claims that the Free Patriotic Movement bloc intended to cede its votes to the President are mere fabrications and a prejudgment that preceded the binding parliamentary consultations that the president intended to conduct today,” the Presidency’s press office said in a statement.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement on Monday slammed both the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces, the country’s biggest Christian parties, lashing out at their “intersection of interests” after they both decided not to vote for caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri in the binding parliamentary consultations to name a new premier.

“The country stands at a critical crossroads that threatens to bring the direst consequences as a result of the race to score political points in one direction or another,” the Movement said in a statement.

The Free Patriotic Movement’s decision to cede its votes to President Michel Aoun so that he uses them as he wishes in the binding parliamentary consultations to pick a PM-designate is a “grave constitutional violation,” caretaker PM Saad Hariri’s office said on Monday.

“In the framework of the political contacts prior to the parliamentary consultations that were set for today, it turned out that the Free Patriotic Movement was planning to deposit its votes with the President of the Republic so that he uses them as he wishes,” Hariri’s office said in an English-language statement.

The Free Patriotic Movement on Monday called on caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri to pick a “consensual” candidate for the PM post.

“The FPM positively calls for an end to the waste of time and for the endorsement of the Strong Lebanon bloc’s proposal on the formation of an active salvation government comprised of competent and upright figures in terms of both its premier and ministers, so that it immediately starts to confront the severe crisis,” the FPM said in a statement.

UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis regretted the postponement of Lebanon's talks to pick a new prime minister in light of an aggravating political and economic crisis.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a warning that Hizbullah and the State of Lebanon will pay dearly for any assault against Israel, Israeli media reports said on Monday.

The Lebanese Army issued a statement on Monday on the clashes with police near the parliament a day earlier on the eve of much-delayed consultations to form a new cabinet needed to fix a deepening economic crisis.