Lebanon announces government after months of deadlock

Lebanon announced the formation of a government on Thursday eight months after elections and amid heightened fears of a major economic collapse.

The Western-backed Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri now faces a big challenge in delivering the reforms needed to address dire public finances and unlock billions of dollars in pledged aid and loans to boost growth.

On May 24, after parliamentary elections, President Michel Aoun quickly nominated Hariri for his third term as prime minister and tasked him with forming a cabinet, but political parties spent eight months arguing over the new government’s makeup.

“We are facing economic, financial, social and administrative challenges,” Hariri said at a press conference in Beirut after the announcement.

“It has been a difficult political period, especially after the elections, and we must turn the page and start working,” he said.

Vicky Khoury, a member of the Sabaa Party, which emanated from the civil society movement, said the new government should first “kick-off the economic wheel”. It should “carry out economic and social reforms”, he told Al Jazeera.

Lebanon has seen over a dozen protests this winter with people demanding a better future.

“People are concerned about the economic situation and about their basic needs such as free public healthcare, infrastructure and schools,” said Khoury, who himself has been protesting in front of the ministry of labour and health.

The new government will include most of Lebanon’s rival factions, who have been negotiating over the makeup of the cabinet since the May 6 election that saw allies of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group gain ground.

The new cabinet includes 30 ministers from Lebanon’s rival political clans. The new line-up will see four women take office, including the interior and energy ministries.

Gibran Bassil is to remain as foreign minister, while a senior official said Ali Hassan Khalil will stay on as finance minister.

A source familiar with the government formation talks said Hezbollah had chosen Shia doctor Jamil Jabak, who is not a member of the group, as health minister.

By picking the health minister, the heavily armed Hezbollah will be moving beyond the marginal role it played in past governments; the ministry has the fourth-biggest budget in the state apparatus, the outgoing health minister has said.

Since the election, Hariri’s last government, appointed in late 2016, has continued in a caretaker capacity.

Hariri lost more than a third of his MPs in the election but kept his status as the leading Sunni Muslim and so returns as prime minister, a position reserved for his sect under Lebanon’s sectarian system of rule.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reporting from Beirut said that forming a government isn’t an easy process when it comes to rival politicians agreeing on the distribution of seats in Lebanon’s sectarian-based power-sharing agreement.

Many observers believe France – as a former colonial power which still has influence in the country – played a significant role in forming the government, Khodr noted.

Hezbollah, an ally of Iran and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, remains a stronger political player in the country divided along sectarian lines.

“Hezbollah and its allies control parliament, control political power in this country and that means by extension Iran and its ally, the Syrian government, who really have influence over Lebanon,” Khodr said.

Additional reporting by Anchal Vohra from Beirut

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies