Lebanon’s Hariri to become PM for third time

BEIRUT: Saad al-Hariri will be Lebanon’s prime minister for a third time, after winning the backing of a majority of MPs in official consultations on Thursday, the office of President Michel Aoun said.

Hariri is expected to launch negotiations on forming a coalition government. The post of prime minister is reserved in Lebanon’s sectarian power sharing system, and the Western-backed Hariri was the clear frontrunner despite losing more than a third of his MPs in a May 6 election.

Hariri’s name was put forward by 111 out of 128 members of Lebanon’s new parliament during consultations with Aoun on Thursday. Aoun must designate the candidate with the greatest backing.

The new coalition government is expected to reflect the enhanced political position of the Iran-backed group Hizbullah and allies that support its possession of arms, which together won at least 70 of parliament’s 128 seats. While Hariri won wide backing, Hizbullah MPs named nobody for the post.

The group would cooperate "positively" with whoever was designated, Mohammed Raad, head of Hizbullah’s parliamentary bloc, said after meeting Aoun. All Lebanese leaders have called for the rapid formation of a new government that will aim to revitalise a stagnant economy situation and address unsustainable public debt levels.

But like the outgoing cabinet, the new government will have to balance out the interests of all the main competing Lebanese parties and may take time. Hizbullah, which is designated a terrorist group by the United States, intends to secure three cabinet seats in the next coalition government, an increase from the two portfolios it held in the outgoing cabinet of 30 ministers, a senior official familiar with the group’s thinking told Reuters.

Hizbullah, which has to date held only marginal cabinet posts, is also seeking more significant service-providing ministries in the new cabinet, sources familiar with its thinking have told Reuters.

Hizbullah also believes a cabinet post should be allocated to one of its allies who wrested seats away from Hariri’s Future Movement. The staunchly anti-Hizbullah Lebanese Forces party, which almost doubled its number of MPs to 15, is also seeking a bigger slice of cabinet portfolios.

Parliament re-elected the Hizbullah-allied politician Nabih Berri as its speaker on Wednesday, extending his tenure in the post he has held since 1992. Another Hizbullah ally, Elie Ferzli, was elected as his deputy.