SO ENDEMIC are Lebanon’s blackouts that there is an app to track Beirut’s rolling cuts, a popular Twitter hashtag “BlameBassil” is named after the energy minister, Gebran Bassil, and researchers study the drop in air quality during power cuts when thousands of generators are whirring. As the long, hot summer drags on, things are getting worse. In recent weeks parts of Beirut, the capital, have suffered nine rather than the usual three hours of cuts. People in rural areas go even longer without power.

Lebanon’s electricity industry was already in sore disrepair before a war in 2006 between Hizbullah, Lebanon’s Shia party-cum-militia, and neighbouring Israel caused further damage. The daily gap between supply and demand is now 1.1GW, around 40% of the country’s demand. Power needs were rising by 6-8% a year before thousands of Syrian refugees poured into the country; the government blamed recent fighting in the south for delayed repairs to the grid. Companies complain that bills for generators hurt business. Power is just one ailing bit of the country’s infrastructure. The government has a monopoly in electricity, though it has long turned a blind eye to operators of private generators. Yet as governments repeatedly change and politicians bicker, little gets done. Few people believe Mr Bassil’s pledge that the country will enjoy 24-hour power by 2015. The politicians are wary of privatisation. Though the government has plans for more power stations and hydroelectric dams, it relies largely on stopgap measures, such as a Turkish ship that arrived this year to generate electricity off the coast.

Sectarian rivalry, entrenched in a complex political system that is meant to ensure a balance between the country’s Sunni and Shia Muslims and its Christians, adds a further twist. Last year, when a parliamentary committee suggested granting permanent contracts to workers at the state-owned Electricité du Liban, Christian leaders complained that the beneficiaries would be mainly Muslim. That, they suggested, would upset the public sector’s balance of power.

Meanwhile, local councils are finding their own solutions. The southern port city of Sidon has installed solar panels to run some traffic lights. Other councils have bought large generators to meet residents’ needs. Yet discontent is rising and protests against the lack of electricity are becoming more frequent.