Lebanon’s Parliament Votes To Move to Daylight Saving Time
Lebanon will move to daylight saving time later this week, overturning a decision announced by caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to postpone changing the clocks for one month in what was seen as a nod to the country’s Muslim population to ease the Ramadan fast. Lebanon’s Cabinet made the decision on Monday in a special session to go to daylight saving time overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.
The country has been living in two time zones since Saturday night, when most of Europe moved their clocks ahead by one hour.
Mikati, who is a Sunni Muslim, announced late that week that the country would delay moving to daylight saving time over the weekend with the rest of Europe, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is a Shiite Muslim, reportedly insisted on delaying the clock change. Muslim parties and other institutions had welcomed the announcement, which said that the clocks would instead change in a month, on April 21. Meanwhile, the large and influential Maronite church on Saturday announced it would turn clocks forward on Saturday night, joined by other Christian organizations, parties, and other institutions. In addition, the two main Lebanese news outlets, LBCI Lebanon and MTV Lebanon News, announced they would move the clocks forward.
The decision to move to daylight saving time will take 48 hours to implement, in order to settle technical matters such as scheduled flights and computer servers.
“The decision was aimed at [allowing] those fasting during the month of Ramadan [to rest] for an hour without causing any harm to any other Lebanese component,” MIkati reportedly said. “I never imagined that some would consider this a confessional or sectarian decision.” He also said that the issue goes deeper than changing the clocks. “The main problem is the vacancy in the presidency, and I do not take responsibility for this vacuum,” he said, blaming “the political and spiritual leaders.”
In addition to being in the midst of what is said to be one of the worst economic crises in recent history, Lebanon has been without a president since October 2022.
