Saad al-Hariri appears to be on course to be chosen PM of Lebanon for a fourth term on Thursday. Hariri would form a government to tackle the country’s deepest crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. The FPM led by Aoun’s son-in-law, which has the largest Christian bloc, has said that it would not nominate Hariri. Hezbollah has also refused to nominate anyone to the post of PM.
Hariri needs to win the support of parliamentarians who have been meeting with President Michel Aoun.
Lebanon, which has been facing a financial crisis since 2018, is facing a huge fallout with the COVID-19 pandemic and the huge August explosion at Beirut port that killed nearly 200 people and caused billions of dollars of damage.
Lebanon PM-designate Mustapha Adib stepped down in September after the two dominant Shia political parties were at loggerheads to name ministers to the cabinet. French President Emmanuel Macron, who visited Lebanon twice after the August blast, had said that France would help the country if its politicians made good on long-overdue reforms. (https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2020/09/26/lebanon-pm-deignate-resigns-cites-clashes-cabinet-formation.html)
Hariri would still face major challenges to navigate Lebanon’s power-sharing politics to name a cabinet, which must then address a mounting list of woes: a banking crisis, currency crash, rising poverty and crippling state debts.
A new government will also have to contend with the fallout of the huge Sunni leader Hariri’s last coalition government, which was toppled almost a year ago as protestors, furious with Lebanon’s ruling elite took to the streets.
“We will contribute to maintain the positive climate,” Mohammed Raad, head of its parliamentary bloc, told Reuters.
