Lebanese president names billionaire businessman Mikati to form new government

Lebanon’s president tasked Najib Mikati, a billionaire businessman and former premier, with forming a new government, the third attempt in less than a year as the country scrambles to escape a spiralling economic crisis.

Mikati received 72 of 115 votes during consultations between President Michel Aoun and lawmakers. He had already won the backing of a group of former Sunni Muslim heavyweight politicians. They include Saad Hariri, who ended his own efforts to build a new administration last week after disagreements with Aoun, and his Future bloc.

Critically, the Shiite Iran-backed Hezbollah group and its allies also gave their support to Mikati. Two major Christian parliamentary factions were among 42 lawmakers who refrained from nominating a premier.

Lebanon has been under a caretaker cabinet since August when the government resigned in the aftermath of the massive port explosion that killed at least 200 people and destroyed swathes of the capital. The government, which defaulted on $30bn in international debt over a year ago, has struggled to implement reforms given its limited authority and political backing. A collapse in the value of the pound has decimated the savings of millions of Lebanese, while shortages of fuel add to the misery.

Mikati, 65, is the co-founder along with his brother of investment firm M1 Group, and the two are Lebanon’s richest men with individual fortunes of about $2.5bn . Their family-owned company has investments in sectors including telecommunications, real estate, aircraft financing, fashion and energy. M1 Group holds stakes in SA telecom firm MTN, fashion retailer Pepe Jeans and property in New York and London, according to Forbes magazine.

A two-time prime minister, he’s from the northern city of Tripoli, one of Lebanon’s poorest, and is considered to be a close friend of Bashar al-Assad, the president of neighbouring Syria and a former major power broker in Lebanon. Mikati entered politics in 1998 as a public works minister and is now a lawmaker.

His most recent cabinet was in 2011 after Hezbollah and its allies toppled Saudi Arabia-backed Hariri and named him to form a government. Mikati resigned two years later over several disputes that pitted Hariri’s coalition against the Hezbollah-led camp.

Mikati has since realigned himself closer to Hariri, who also has ties to France, the UAE and Egypt.

The international community, primarily former colonial power France, has been pushing Lebanon’s fractious politicians to form a government quickly and begin implementing reforms that could unlock billions of dollars of pledged aid and revive stalled talks with the International Monetary Fund.

Nationwide protests erupted in October 2019 over falling living conditions with demonstrators demanding the removal of an entire political class that they accuse of rampant corruption, pillaging state coffers and pushing the country to the brink of collapse.

During the protest period, a state prosecutor accused Mikati and the country’s biggest bank of making illicit gains from a subsidised housing programme. Both Mikati and the bank have denied any wrongdoing.

Bloomberg. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com