Lebanon entered a transitional stage on Thursday, only a few hours after the collapse of Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s government, as President Michel Suleiman declared the government in caretaker capacity pending the formation of a new government.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday announced that consultations on appointing a new prime minister would begin on Monday.
""Consultations with parliamentarians will begin Monday at noon (1000 GMT),"" the state-run National News Agency quoted Berri as saying.
Meanwhile the resignations of all 10 ministers of the opposition March 8 Alliance and Minister of State Adnan Sayyed Hussein raised doubts about who will lead the next cabinet.
President Michel Sleiman announced he will start mandatory consultations Monday at the Baabda Presidential Palace to create a new government.
According to the Constitution, Lebanon’s president appoints a prime minister to form a new government after binding consultations with MPs.
--Caretaker government has no direct mandate
On Wednesday, 11 ministers resigned from Hariri’s government in protest at his refusal to convene the cabinet to discuss the Special Tribunal for Lebanon especially after the Saudi-Syrian effort to defuse the STL crisis was presumed dead.
It is the first time in Lebanon’s history that a government is toppled by the resignation of more than a third of its members, but it’s not the first time a government continues functioning in a caretaker capacity. Only this time, there is a slight difference with the STL expected to issue an indictment regarding the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Martyr Rafiq Hariri, and no official authority to receive it.
The indictment is expected to implicate Hezbollah in the murder; a move widely seen as politicized serving U.S. and Israeli interests in Lebanon and the region.
A dark cloud has been hanging over Lebanon since last year, when the chairman of Israel’s joint chiefs of staff claimed that the Hariri tribunal would find Hezbollah guilty of the assassination of Rafiq Hariri.
The Hezbollah secretary general also said the prime minister had informed him that the tribunal would accuse some members of Hezbollah of involvement in the assassination.
The $50 million U.S. contribution to the tribunal last year showed that even if there is an agreement in Lebanon on rejection of the court, Washington would keep it functioning to issue the indictments.
--Hezbollah to name candidate
A Hezbollah MP says the group will name a capable personality to the head of Lebanon's future government after the collapse of the cabinet.
On Thursday, Lebanese lawmaker Mohammad Raad, who heads the Lebanese resistance movement's parliamentary bloc, said the group is to nominate ""a personality with a national resistance biography"" to the office, Lebanese website Naharnet reported.
Following talks with former President Emile Lahoud, Raad told reporters that the resignations of opposition ministers surprised all players and “exposed plots that were in the making,” without further elaboration.
Raad hoped that the solutions that might be reached would put an end to foreign interference in Lebanese domestic issues.
The foreign meddling ""wants to politicize everything in favor of Israel,"" Raad noted.
Some analysts believe that Lebanese former prime minister Omar Karami is one of the candidates probably named by Hezbollah.
---Hariri tribunal targets resistance
“The tribunal probing into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri is engineered by world powers to harm the resistance front in Lebanon,” said Daoud Khairallah, a Georgetown University law professor, in an interview with Press TV.
“There are foreign powers, who have invested a lot of time and a lot of efforts in this tribunal, thinking that this is an instrument to get to the major worry of Israel in the area, that is the resistance,” said the analyst.
“The entire idea of the tribunal is an instrument of political pressure to reach political objectives,” he added.
Saudi Arabia and Syria’s collaboration to resolve the deadlock fell flat recently after Lebanon's prime minister Saad Hariri refused to respond to the joint efforts and make a compromise at the expense of the U.S.-sponsored STL.
Lebanon has gone through different periods without having a government or president. It seems to be the opposition's strategy that the next premier forms a new government after he has rejected the court's verdict.
Many analysts point to another horrendous prospect, which is (another) Israeli attack on Lebanon after the tribunal's issuance of the ruling and Hezbollah's being charged with Rafiq Hariri's assassination.
The Israeli regime has for many times mentioned Hezbollah's strong military power and pointed to the capability of the movement's missiles to leave extensive damage and kill hundreds of Israelis. This does not serve as praise and has come up due to the certain character of the prospects of war and is aimed to avoid the risks.