Region | Lebanon
Lebanon announces new unity government
New Lebanese cabinet to ease sectarian and political tensions, adopt an election law and supervise next poll.
- Agencies
- Published: 17:42 July 11, 2008
- Lebanon's Prime Minister Fuad Saniora gestures during a press conference at the Presidential Palace in suburban Baabda on Friday.
- Image Credit: AP
Beirut: Lebanon announced a 30-member national unity government on Friday tasked with resolving the country's worst political crisis since a 1975-1990 civil war.
"The government of national unity is the government of all the Lebanese," Siniora told reporters at the presidential palace.
The cabinet's main task will be to ease sectarian and political tensions to avert further violence, adopt an election law agreed in the Qatar talks and supervise next year's poll.
The majority coalition chose 16 ministers. Sulaiman picked the remaining three, including Interior Minister Ziad Baroud.
Siniora's close adviser Mohammad Shatah takes the finance portfolio. Hezbollah's Mohammad Fneish becomes labour minister and Fawzi Salloukh, of the Shiite Amal group, foreign minister.
He also appointed lawyer and electoral law expert Ziad Baroud to head the interior ministry which is responsible for organising legislative elections next year.
Finance Minister Mohammad Shatah, who was appointed by the ruling bloc, served as Siniora's senior advisor in the previous cabinet.
The government announced more than a year-and-a-half into Lebanon's political crisis includes one woman, Bahia Hariri, sister of slain former prime minister Rafik Hariri. She is to head the education ministry.
Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun, whose party was not represented in the previous cabinet, took four cabinet posts plus the deputy premiership.
The Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shiite Hezbollah was allocated three seats in the cabinet, with Fneish to serve alongside two allies.
Siniora, who was appointed by Lebanese President Michel Sulaiman, said the new government would have two key tasks: "To restore confidence in political institutions and the Lebanese political system ... and to promote moderation."
"Our differences will not be resolved overnight, but we have decided to resolve them through institutions and dialogue rather than in the streets," said the prime minister, who first came to office in July 2005.
The cabinet's inaugural meeting is to take place on Wednesday.
Paris meeting
"Finally!" a 21-year-old Beirut man, who gave his name only as Ahmad, said of the new cabinet. "Hopefully it will be a real national unity government and they won't waste time fighting at the table and will sort out the problems of the Lebanese."
Sulaiman is due in Paris for tomorrow's launch of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union project, his first foreign trip as president. He is expected to hold talks there with his Syrian counterpart Bashar Al Assad.
Bashar's presence at the summit, which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will also attend, marks French recognition of Syria's role in facilitating a compromise in Lebanon.
Damascus had given its blessing to the Doha deal, which effectively translated into political gains the military victory Hezbollah and its allies had won against their Western-backed foes in street fighting in Beirut and elsewhere earlier in May.
With the government in place, Sulaiman is expected to call rival leaders for round-table talks on divisive issues, with the fate of Hezbollah's weapons foremost among them.
Hezbollah maintains a formidable army that fought off Israeli forces in a 34-day war in 2006.
Its domestic detractors say Hezbollah has had no reason to keep its weapons since Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000. Hezbollah and its allies argue that it needs its arsenal to deter and defend Lebanon against possible Israeli attack.
Hezbollah and Israel are expected to exchange prisoners later this month.
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