After daylight saving time, Lebanon now has two time zones

A last-minute move to the start of daylight saving time by the government has thrown Lebanon into disarray. While some institutions stuck to government guidelines on Sunday, others changed their clocks, leaving many residents to decide for themselves what time to use. Many had to juggle between different work and school times.

Daylight saving time in Lebanon usually begins on the last Sunday in March, as it does in most European countries. On Thursday, however, the government of Acting Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced that daylight saving time would not start until April 21 this year. She didn't give a reason.

But a video circulated in which Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri asked the head of government to postpone it so that Muslims in the country did not have to wait so long for dinner during the month of fasting. Berri dismissed Mikati's suggestion that this would cause trouble for the airline. During Ramadan, devout Muslims are only allowed to eat after sunset. However, because of daylight saving time, they have to get up an hour earlier.

Public institutions are officially bound by the government's decision. But many private entities, including TV stations, schools and businesses, said they would ignore the decision and change their clocks to daylight saving time on Sunday.

Japanese NGO worker Haruka Naito said she had to be in two places at the same time on Monday. She has an appointment with the authorities for her residence papers at 8:00 a.m. Her Arabic course begins at 9 a.m. The authority is adhering to the government guidelines, while the Arabic Institute is switching to daylight saving time.

The country's two major mobile phone companies asked their customers to change the time themselves if they wished. However, on many cell phones, the time automatically advances one hour.

At times, the dispute over time took on religious traits, and Lebanon is heavily religiously divided. Many Christian politicians and institutions announce that they will present their clocks, including the Maronites as the country's largest church. Some were already talking about Christian and Muslim times in Lebanon, but some Muslims also didn't want to go along with the government's guidelines. They argued that because fasting lasts from sunrise to sunset, the time during which no food is allowed to be eaten is always the same length.

On Sunday, the Lebanese woke up to a lot of confusion with two times in force. The TV stations MTV and LBCI, other media and Catholic schools also changed their clocks.

Confusion is likely to have arisen, especially among air travelers. The state airline Middle East Airlines (MEA) followed Mikati's step and published a table with departure times brought forward by one hour. The airline apparently wants to remain in the international flight schedule and enable connecting flights without travelers having to start their flights in a different time zone than the officially applicable one. A video circulated on Twitter of two clocks showing two times next to each other at Beirut airport.

"The chaos is in full swing as we try to find out when our Monday appointments will take place," tweeted the head of the Heinrich Böll Foundation's Beirut office, Anna Fleischer. The joke made the rounds on social media that in Lebanon you now have to make an appointment with the addition of “Muslim time” or “Christian time”. Author Kim Ghattas wrote that the chaos would be comical if it weren't another sign of "a total failure at all levels of political leadership."

Lebanon is currently stuck in one of the worst economic crises in its history. For months without a president and Mikati's caretaker government, the country has only been able to act to a limited extent. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently declared that the country is at a "very dangerous crossroads".