Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri is set to give a speech from his official residence at 3 p.m. CET on Tuesday, an official Twitter account said, Euronews reports.
Earlier, two official sources told Reuters that Hariri was likely to resign amid unprecedented protests against a ruling elite many accuse of corruption and leading Lebanon into economic collapse.
Hariri’s resignation would not be well received by the Shia Muslim group Hezbollah, whose leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has twice said he was against such a step, citing the risk of a dangerous void.
Lebanon’s government is designed to provide political representation of all Lebanese religious groups, with its three largest being Christian Maronites, Sunni Muslims, and Shiite Muslims.
The president must always be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni and the speaker of parliament a Shia.
Hezbollah supporters and its Shia ally the Amal Movement ousted protesters in the streets on Tuesday from a roadblock they had set up in Beirut, tearing down their tents and fighting with them, forcing police to intervene in the first incident of its kind since protests began.
A major dispute flared up between Hariri and other groups in his cabinet, with his opponents accusing him of siding with protesters and not allowing security forces to remove them from the streets, sources told Reuters.
Tuesday was the first attempt to unblock roads in the capital by force and police have been instructed to not use force with protesters.
Last week, Hariri tried to calm protesters with a series of reform measures agreed with other groups in his coalition government, including Hezbollah. The reforms were aimed at tackling corruption and putting in place long-delayed economic reforms.
However, demonstrations calling for the resignation of the government continued since no immediate steps towards enacting the reforms were put in place,
The nationwide protests have paralysed Lebanon at a time of deep economic crisis — banks were closed for a 10th day on Tuesday along with schools and businesses.