Lebanon finally has a government in place after a year of turmoil and economic distress, as the country’s President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati signed Friday the decree to form the new government, bringing to an end the 13 months-long deadlock that had hampered the formation of a cabinet.
Speaking with local media outlet Lebanon 24 earlier in the day, Mikati said the government would not include a blocking third or veto power for any political party.
Eddy Maalouf, a parliamentarian in President Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement bloc told the media that the government would be formed of 24 ministers.
“The government had been decided on for a couple of days but small questions remained,” he said.
The deadlock, which reportedly stemmed from Mikati’s attempts to name several Christian ministers, had been settled.
“Two Christian ministers have been chosen with both of their approvals,” Maalouf said.
Opponents of Aoun had accused him of seeking such veto power whether the government has 20, 22 or 24 ministers.
Mikati was the third man to take on the mantle after his predecessors Moustapha Adib and Saad Hariri failed to come to terms with Aoun. Lebanon’s power-sharing system stipulates that both the president and prime minister should agree on a government lineup in unison.
Hariri had stepped down in July over “key differences” with the president after being nominated nine months earlier.
Lebanon has been without a fully functioning government since outgoing Prime Minister Hassan Diab stepped down in the immediate aftermath of the Beirut port explosion in Aug. 2020, exacerbating an economic collapse that has plunged over 60 percent of the population into poverty.