Talks on forming new government positive: Hariri

Dubai: Prime Minister-designate Sa’ad Hariri ended talks on forming a new government on Saturday after two days of intensive meetings with various Lebanese political parties.

He described the consultations as “generally positive” and stressed that all parties were eager to form a new government “as fast as possible”.

He said that parliamentary blocs will be given portfolios based on the size of their bloc.

Hariri’s key support had contributed to the election of Free Patriotic Movement founder and ex-army chief Michel Aoun as Lebanon’s 13th president on Monday, which ended around two and a half years of presidential and political vacuum.

Hariri’s nomination and the election of a president after a vacuum of more than two years have raised hopes that Lebanon can begin tackling challenges including a stagnant economy, a moribund political class and the influx of over a million Syrian refugees.

It is also something of a comeback for Hariri, a Western-backed Sunni politician who had been left in the political cold in recent years.

Experts have cautioned that Hariri may be hamstrung from the start because of ongoing divisions in the country’s complex political scene.

Hariri is a fierce opponent of Lebanon’s influential Shiite Hezbollah movement, and has sharply criticised its role in bolstering Syria’s government against an uprising.

But he was forced to throw his support behind their candidate for the presidency, Michel Aoun, in order to secure his return to power as prime minister.