BEIRUT — Lebanese President Michel Suleiman formally accepted on Saturday the resignation of the prime minister, who stepped down blaming government infighting during a time of rising sectarian tensions. Prime Minister Najib Mikati submitted his written resignation to the president after announcing he was stepping down the day before, taking the nation by surprise. Suleiman asked that his government assume a caretaking role while a new government is being formed. Mikati's unexpected resignation throws the country into uncertainty at a critical time and threatens to leave a void in the state's highest ranks amid sporadic violence inflamed by the civil war in neighboring Syria. It opens the way for what is expected to be prolonged political jockeying as parliamentary blocs try to build a majority coalition to choose a new prime minister. “I hope that this resignation will provide an opening in the existing deadlock and pave the way for a (political) solution,” he said, following his meeting with Suleiman Saturday. Mikati has been prime minister since June 2011, heading a government dominated by the Hezbollah and its allies, many of whom have a close relationship with Syria. Their main rivals are a Western-backed coalition headed by former Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri, son of Rafik Hariri, who was also Prime Minister and was killed in a truck bombing in 2005. A Harvard-educated billionaire, Mikati was chosen to lead the government after Hezbollah forced the collapse of Lebanon's previous, pro-Western government over fears a UN-backed tribunal investigating the killing of the elder Hariri would indict Hezbollah members. — AP
