Hizballah Plays Politics in Lebanon

The Shi'a group's resignation from the cabinet could bring down the country's shaky government and threaten its fragile stability.

In a normal democracy, the resignation of a few ministers wouldn't spark a constitutional crisis. But Lebanon is anything but normal — it's a sectarian democracy, based upon the balance of power between religious groups. And that balance is now collapsing.

On Sunday, Hizballah, the militia and Shia Muslim political party, pulled out of the governing coalition along with Amal, another Shia political party. Hizballah and Amal, which together represent almost all of Lebanon's Shia, had been demanding four new cabinet positions on the grounds that their resistance against Israel during the war over the summer merits greater representation in government.