Beirut -
Najib Mikati was able to win the title of the third prime minister-designate to form a Lebanese government, after the resignation of Hassan Diab's government in August of last year, in a country experiencing its worst historical crises, politically, economically and living.
And the mandatory parliamentary consultations conducted by President Michel Aoun ended, yesterday, Monday, assigning Mikati with 72 votes, against 42 MPs who did not vote for anyone, and one vote for the diplomat, Nawaf Salam, while 3 MPs were absent from the consultations.
Mikati comes as the designated head of a government that France sought about a year ago to extract from the womb of the initiative launched by President Emmanuel Macron in Beirut, and called it the "mission government" consisting of non-partisan specialists.
However, the French initiative gradually collapsed, according to many, after Mustafa Adeeb (the first commissioner) was unable to author it, so he apologized, then appointed Saad Hariri and apologized after about 9 months, as a result of the escalation of differences between him and the President of the Republic and his political team, leading to consensus on the personality of Mikati, Armed with a sectarian (Sunni) cover from Dar Al-Fatwa and what is known as the club of former prime ministers.
Mikati said after his meeting with Aoun, after his official assignment, that he will seek to form a government in cooperation with the President of the Republic, and its first task is to implement the French initiative, stressing that he has obtained the required external guarantees to implement his mission.
Although Mikati, like Hariri, did not get the vote of the two largest Christian blocs in parliament, namely the Free Patriotic Movement (headed by Gibran Bassil) and the Lebanese Forces Party, he won the votes of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, unlike Hariri, who, when assigned, won 65 votes without the party's votes. .
designate president
Mikati, 65, is a businessman and billionaire of the world's richest people, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes magazine at 2.7 billion dollars. He comes from Tripoli in the north of the country, where most of its people live in extreme poverty. He is considered a political leader of the Sunni-majority city, and was ranked in the 2018 elections. The first was that he received 21,000 preferential votes, after a fierce competition between his list and Hariri's list in the north.
Mikati also headed two governments in 2005 and 2011, and the latter was described as a one-color government that was dominated by Hezbollah's influence.
This man, who is described as moderate and moderate, was among the officials around whom suspicions of corruption were raised in several judicial files, such as "illegal enrichment" and the housing loan file.
Mikati constants
A source close to Mikati told Al Jazeera Net that he will start from 3 basic constants in the writing phase:
The formation of a non-political technocratic government that includes only specialists and without quotas or blocking a third for anyone
Giving the government a rescue character, whose mission is to curb the collapse and negotiate with the International Monetary Fund.
Not to enter an open commission, and he will give himself a short time, either succeed in writing or withdraw, in order to prevent the opening of a political bazaar.
However, these constants prompted Hariri to clash with Aoun's team at the wall of apology.
Mikati (right) won the votes of the Lebanese Hezbollah bloc, unlike Hariri (European)
Will Mikati succeed in turning the authorship equations in his favour?
The writer and political analyst, Radwan Aqil, rules out that Mikati will face the same obstacles that Hariri faced, based on several considerations:
Aoun and Bassil were rejecting Hariri's presence, and they succeeded in pushing him to apologize, after their dispute took on a personal nature, while the nature of this relationship does not exist with Mikati.
Unlike Hariri, who refused throughout his assignment to meet with Bassil, Mikati met with him on Sunday evening, before his official assignment, as a positive sign to open channels of communication and discussion with Aoun's team.
This time, Aoun and Bassil will be more lenient with Mikati, because if he is surrounded, after assigning two presidents, they will be more embarrassed in front of public opinion, and it is difficult to find a figure with a Sunni cover after Hariri and Mikati.
Throughout Hariri’s assignment, his dispute with President Aoun revolved around the inconsistency in explaining the constitutional powers, in addition to the dispute over the distribution of ministerial portfolios and the number of ministers, in return for Aoun’s adherence to naming Christian ministers, what is known as the blocking third, and the interior and justice portfolios.
Here, Akil considers, in an interview with Al Jazeera Net, that Aoun and Basil realize the difficulty of achieving their demands, which prompts them to deal with different pragmatism, noting that Basil's bloc's refusal to name Mikati, does not mean that they are not open to negotiation with him because Bassil seeks to invest his positions for the 2022 elections, and if this fails The government, according to Aqeel, does not want to be held responsible in front of the street, specifically the Christian.
Accordingly, the political analyst expects the birth of the Mikati government after a while, "as his relations seem acceptable, as Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (Hezbollah's ally) supports him, in addition to his nomination by Hezbollah, which needs to form a government, in order to control the repercussions of the collapse on the street."
But if the Aoun-Hariri scenario is repeated, according to Aqil, it means that Mikati will be close to an apology, so that the caretaker government will remain until the 2022 elections.
Hezbollah adheres to its call to form a political government, not a government of technocrats (Al-Jazeera)
Authoring Obstacles
On the other hand, the political researcher Fadi Al-Ahmar and the professor of international relations, Raif Al-Khoury, in their interview with Al-Jazeera Net, agree on the difficulty of forming a government, and the latter considers that Mikati is not more fortunate than Hariri and before him Adeeb, and he expects his apology to be a matter of time.
Internally: Al-
Ahmar considers that the obstacles facing Mikati are still the same with Aoun, Bassil, and those behind them, Hezbollah, linked to Aoun's refusal to form a government without naming the Christian ministers in it, and recalling the position of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who repeatedly repeated his call to form a political government , given that the government of technocrats will not be up to the challenges.
Al-Ahmar believes that Hezbollah is sticking to its representation in the government, given its apprehension about the course of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, which prompts it to seek involvement in it or to supervise its details.
Al-Ahmar is likely that Aoun’s team will stick to the interior portfolio, because it will be entrusted with supervising the elections, and the scope of its security management of the country’s affairs will expand if chaos occurs on the street, and if there is no consensus on the election of a new president to succeed Aoun next year.
Aoun's team will also remain committed to the Ministry of Justice, because it will follow up on corruption files, including the criminal audit file in the Central Bank's accounts.
These are conditions, which Mikati is supposed to reject, in line with the position of previous prime ministers, in order to start from where Hariri ended, according to al-Ahmar.
For his part, Khoury considers that there is a process of distributing roles between Aoun's team and Hezbollah, given their strong alliance.
If the latter was named Mikati, then the former blocked the voice of the largest Christian bloc from him, and therefore, if Basil did not make some concessions, the Mikati government would not be able to see.
Observers expect that the Lebanese government will be formed in a short period if the Iranian-American views converge (Reuters)
Externally: Al-
Khoury finds that Mikati is only armed with French support, but it will not work, "after their initiative faded item after item, and it did not succeed just because it sought to gather Basil and Hariri at the same table."
The external criterion for the birth of the government, according to the professor of international relations, is related to the Vienna negotiations between Iran and America.
Therefore, "some internal forces stand behind the position of the President of the Republic, who serves it."
Hezbollah chose Mikati's support, according to the professor of international relations, relying on the opposition of Aoun's team to him, so that its lines (the party) would remain open with the Sunni component, in order to avoid any untimely political or sectarian conflict, and as an expression of its flexibility towards the French initiative.
He said, "If the Iranian-American views converge, the government of Lebanon can be formed within 24 hours, because the new US administration implicitly recognizes Iran's strong influence in the region."
Gulf: Al-
Khoury believes that Mikati's shares will not rise in Saudi Arabia more than Hariri, considering that every aid to Lebanon means aid to Hezbollah and Iran.
Al-Ahmar believes that Saudi Arabia's position is "negative neutrality" towards Lebanon, ruling out the birth of the government, unless a fundamental contract is resolved, internally, Arably and internationally.