BEIRUT: Lebanese diplomat Mustapha Adib has been tasked with forming a government by a majority of parliamentarians representing the country’s political establishment.
Adib will now have to form a government that can push through long-overdue economic, financial and governance reforms in order to unlock international support for the crisis-hit nation, which was already collapsing before the Beirut Port explosion.
Adib received the votes of 90 MPs out of a possible 120, garnering the support of Hezbollah and its allies the Free Patriotic Movement and the Amal Movement, in addition to the Future Movement of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and a number of smaller blocs.
“It’s time for work to dovetail efforts and join hands, to restore hope among the Lebanese,” Adib told reporters. “By the grace of God Almighty, we hope we will be successful in selecting professionals with proven expertise and efficiency to implement the necessary financial and economic reforms.”
Seventeen MPs voted for other candidates, including 14 votes by the Lebanese Forces for International Court of Justice judge Nawaf Salam. About a dozen MPs either voted for no one or did not show up.
Like his predecessor Hassan Diab, who was named by a narrower margin of the country’s establishment following unprecedented anti-government protests that toppled a government last year, 48-year-old Adib is little-known to the public.
He has been Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany since 2013, has for two decades been an advisor to billionaire former Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and is seen as being close to the country’s major parties.
Monday’s binding consultations between President Michel Aoun and MPs amounted to little more than a rubber stamp on a decision that had been hashed out among the country’s sectarian leaders in the lead-up to French President Emmanuel Macron’s second visit to Beirut in under a month.