Who are the winners and losers from its formation? How did the last hours' negotiations succeed in bringing the Mikati government into existence?

Beirut - 

The Lebanese recently heard the announcement of the formation of Najib Mikati's government in his 14th meeting with President of the Republic, Michel Aoun, 13 months after the resignation of Hassan Diab's government, during which Lebanon witnessed an unprecedented economic, living, political and security slump and collapse.

In contrast to Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who continued with the assignment for 9 months, and Mustafa Adib also accepted, who also apologized, Mikati drafted an agreement that is still vague with President Aoun and his team, which resulted in a government described by many as a "political quota government."

Accordingly, Najib Mikati (65 years old) heads his third government consisting of 24 ministers, after the governments of 2005 and 2011. .

How could he form a government in a task described as impossible?

In the last hours, there was talk of international pressures and intense contacts to overcome obstacles around the so-called blocking third of the President of the Republic, the dispute over the nomination of Christian ministers, and the distribution of some sovereign and service portfolios.

Among the portfolios that were dissolved, for example: the Ministry of the Interior, which was taken over by Bassam al-Mawla despite Aoun’s previous demand that a Christian minister take over, and the Finance from the Amal Movement’s share, and it was taken over by the Director of Financial Operations at the Central Bank of Lebanon, Youssef Khalil, despite the veto that Aoun imposed on his name.

On the other hand, Aoun reserved for his team the ministries of economy, justice, energy and other portfolios for Christian ministers, in a government that was divided equally between Christians and Muslims.

government mines

Mikati's statement confirmed that the political forces are represented by the government, which negates the character of non-partisan specialists to which the French initiative was marketed after the explosion of the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020.

Writer and political analyst Rosana Boumansef asks questions about issues she considers ambiguous and mined: What was the settlement that prompted Aoun to give up the blocking third, or is there a convincing third he saved for his team?

Boumansef claims, during an interview with Al Jazeera Net, that there is a hidden pole in the government, and that the gains that some political forces have relinquished may seek to compensate for them with administrative appointments.

The government, according to Boumansef, has two main entitlements: negotiation with the International Monetary Fund, and the completion of parliamentary elections in the spring of 2022.

It is likely that this will be a priority for the ministerial statement after obtaining the confidence of Parliament, in addition to emergency files, such as fuel and medicine, and the repercussions of lifting subsidies.

After the government announced, the lira recorded a remarkable improvement against the dollar, and its exchange rate fell from 19,000 to about 16,000, and many saw that this falls within the psychological battle that the Lebanese are experiencing, and that the improvement in the value of the currency needs reforms from the government.

In parallel, Joseph Bahout, director of the Issam Fares Center for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, considers that there is a great settlement resembling the bazaar, after days of melancholy and government complexity.

Bahout believes that Mikati did not clarify the details of the consensus, and was ambiguous when asked about his intention to run for elections, knowing that one of the international conditions is the formation of a government without members nominated for parliamentary elections to ensure transparency.

He told Al Jazeera Net that Aoun and Mikati's understanding reminds of the presidential settlement between Aoun and Hariri in 2016, in terms of the lack of clarity in the content of the understandings, which later turned into a fierce rivalry.

On the other hand, the writer and political analyst Hussein Ayoub considers that the government's combination contains many ambiguities that helped its sudden birth, and it may include more than one "king" minister and more than a disabled third, as there are several names that have a wide margin of movement among the political forces.

Ayoub told Al Jazeera Net that the government has matured with controls that do not show that anyone inside it has lost or won 100%.

He believes that Mikati's government will work within a set of traps, and that "the moment that facilitated its birth regionally may change, falter, or make its work not easy."

Regional Extensions

The birth of the government was preceded by regional developments towards Lebanon, the most important of which were the departure of oil derivatives ships from Iran towards Syria to transport them overland to Lebanon, the US approval of an agreement on the entry of Egyptian gas through Jordan and Syria into the Lebanese interior, and the visit of a high-level Lebanese delegation to Damascus.

These developments coincided with internal measures, such as the gradual lifting of fuel subsidies, a large-scale security campaign to arrest drug and fuel monopolists, and the approval of a financing card project at a rate of $126 for each of the poorest families.

Here, Rosana Boumansef finds that the outside wants to "brake" the collapse in Lebanon, which was manifested by civil and military aid, and "some regional powers want a transitional government for the elections, despite their neglect of internal efforts to postpone them."

However, Joseph Bahout believes that the international settlement is incomplete, and that France is embarrassed despite its formal gain, because the current government does not resemble the content of its initiative, such as keeping the Ministry of Energy with Aoun's political team.

As for the Gulf states, it is likely that neutrality will continue on the basis of neither punishment nor encouragement, as long as the government includes Hezbollah, "and the outside is watching how it will deal with the Iranian gas and ships agreement."

On the other hand, Hussein Ayoub believes that there is an international regional impetus that was provided for the first time for the birth of the government, and Lebanon did not witness it even during Macron's visits to Beirut in 2020.

Among the driving factors - according to Ayoub - the contact a few days ago between Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi and French President Emmanuel Macron, and the Iranian presidency's statement, which indicated that "the efforts and endeavors of Iran, France and Hezbollah to form a strong Lebanese government can be in the interest of Lebanon."

He pointed out that this came after a big deal that Total won in Iraq, which cannot be achieved without the Americans and the Iranians, and in view of that, "Lebanon seemed an arena for calm and expression of regional goodwill, and it was a favorable moment that Mikati seized," according to Ayoub.

Who are the winners and losers?

Boumansef finds that the government has overthrown the concept of forming a government of non-partisan specialists, thus re-floating political power.

Accordingly, the "civil society" that demanded a change of the political class is the loser, along with the international community, which negotiated with political forces that it tried to deny.

As for the winner - according to Boumansef - it is the political forces that shared the government shares, noting that Hezbollah is the permanent winner, given the support of its environment and its wide margin of action.

Joseph Bahout agrees with her, considering that the traditional political forces won the counter-revolution of the people, and that Aoun's era dropped the notion that he did not want to form a government, and Mikati also won a "prize" to head the government.

As for Hussein Ayoub, he believes that it is not possible to talk about the gains of Michel Aoun, but of his son-in-law, Gibran Bassil, because the latter's calculations facilitated the birth of the government due to its connection with his presidential ambition.

And the first winner - in Ayoub's opinion - is Najib Mikati, and the first loser is Saad Hariri. "This is the third government that Mikati has formed in pivotal moments, bypassing huge mines, while Hariri wanted to be prime minister and that no one else would form it."