Mustapha Adib emerges as front-runner for Lebanon’s PM

Aoun began consultations on selecting a new PM in the presidential palace in Baabda near Beirut on Monday morning. A majority of lawmakers must decide on whom to name as premier before Aoun tasks the candidate with forming a government. A relatively unknown 48-year-old ambassador to Germany, Adib, who was a close aide to former premier Najib Mikati, is expected to become the new premier after he secured backing from the country's politicians. On Sunday, the Sunni Muslim political figures in Lebanon, including the Future Movement party headed by former premier Sa'ad Hariri, picked Adib to succeed Hassan Diab, who resigned as prime minister following Beirut’s August 4 blast. Under a power-sharing agreement that ended the 1975-1990 civil war in Lebanon, the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim, the president a Maronite Christian and the parliament speaker a Shia Muslim. Hariri announced on Monday that he had nominated Adib to the position in formal consultations with Aoun. Speaking after a meeting with the president, Hariri said the new government should be formed quickly and made up of specialist ministers. Hezbollah members of Lebanon's parliament also nominated Adib as the next premier. Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc “informed President Aoun of its agreement to the nomination of Mustapha Adib and we expressed our readiness for positive cooperation,” the head of its parliamentary bloc, Mohamed Ra'ad, said after a meeting with the president on Monday. Diab’s government resigned after the devastating explosion at a port in Beirut that killed at least 188 people and wounded thousands. The blast came amid public anger over the ruling elite’s mismanagement of an economic crisis. The Lebanese pound has continued to plummet against the US dollar, losing more than 60 percent of its value over the last weeks while sources of foreign currency have dried up. Observers say American sanctions on Lebanon have deteriorated its already struggling economy. The consultations come as French President Emmanuel Macron is due to return to Lebanon, after his previous visit to the country that followed the blast and sparked outrage among the Lebanese. Macron, whose country witnessed months-long and nationwide anti-government protests by Yellow Vests over economic injustice in 2018 and 2019, used a provocative colonial tone in his visit, calling for political and economic reforms in Lebanon. SOURCE: PRESS TV