BEIRUT: Lebanon’s prime minister-designate Saad Hariri stepped down Thursday, saying he was unable to form a government, nine months after accepting the challenge and as the country sinks deeper into crisis.

International donors remain adamant that a government must be established before they can open credit lines, but political squabbling among Lebanese factions has repeatedly stymied those efforts, amid soaring poverty rates and a collapsing local currency. Hariri’s announcement takes the painstaking process of forming a new government back to square one and brings the risk of many more months of drift. President Michel Aoun will now have to call on parliament to pick a new premier-designate, who will be tasked with assembling a new cabinet which in turn will have to be approved by the president and political factions. Hariri’s decision followed a meeting with Aoun over his draft cabinet lineup.

“There were amendments requested by the president, which I considered substantial,” Hariri told reporters after the meeting. “It is clear that... we will not be able to agree,” he added, noting that the president had expressed the same opinion.

Aoun’s office hit back in a statement, saying that Hariri “was not ready to discuss amendments of any kind.”

Hariri told the president to spend an additional day reviewing the draft, “but what’s the use of an extra day if the door to discussion is closed,” Aoun’s office added. Hariri has previously repeatedly accused Aoun of hampering the process by insisting on a cabinet share that would effectively give his team a decision-making veto - charges the president denies.

He had been nominated prime minister designate in October 2020, following a devastating explosion at Beirut port in August caused by unsafely stored fertiliser that killed more than 200 people and forced the previous government to resign.

His exit leaves Lebanon rudderless amid a deepening economic crisis the World Bank has branded as one of the planet’s worst since the mid-19th century.