Nawaf Salam: ICJ president named Lebanon’s new prime minister

Nawaf Salam, the president of the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague, has been named as Lebanon’s new prime minister.

Two thirds of the 128 members of parliament nominated the 71-year-old choose for the publish – reserved for a Sunni Muslim underneath a sectarian energy sharing system – throughout consultations with newly elected President Joseph Aoun. Caretaker PM Najib Mikati obtained 9 votes.

The presidency stated Salam would return to Lebanon on Tuesday.

His appointment is one other blow to Hezbollah, which had sought to reappoint Mikati however ended up nominating no candidate. The Iran-backed Shia Muslim militia and political occasion has been considerably weakened by its latest battle with Israel.

Senior Hezbollah lawmaker Mohammed Raad accused its opponents of working for fragmentation and exclusion.

He complained that his group had “prolonged its hand” by supporting Aoun’s election solely to seek out the “hand reduce”, and warned that “any authorities at odds with coexistence has no legitimacy in any way”.

Nonetheless, Christian and Sunni allies of Hezbollah did again Salam.

Gebran Bassil, the chief of Lebanon’s greatest Maronite Christian bloc, known as him the “face of reform”. Sunni lawmaker Faisal Karami in the meantime stated he had nominated the ICJ chief because of the calls for for “change and renewal” in addition to guarantees of worldwide help for Lebanon.

Salam is a member of a distinguished Sunni household from Beirut. His uncle, Salam, helped Lebanon acquire independence from France in 1943 and served a number of phrases as prime minister. His cousin, Tammam, was additionally prime minister from 2014 to 2016.

He holds a doctorate in political science from Sciences Po college in France, a doctorate in historical past from the Sorbonne and a Grasp of Legislation diploma from Harvard Legislation Faculty.

Salam labored as a lawyer and a lecturer at a number of universities earlier than serving as Lebanon’s everlasting consultant to the United Nations in New York from 2007 to 2017.

He grew to become a member of the ICJ – the UN’s high court docket – in 2018, and was elected president for a three-year time period final February. He took over because the ICJ heard a case introduced by South Africa that accused Israeli forces of committing genocide towards Palestinians within the Gaza Strip. Israel dismissed the allegation as baseless.

Now that he has been designated prime minister by President Aoun, Salam should agree a cupboard line-up that may win a confidence vote in Lebanon’s deeply-divided parliament.

Former Lebanese military chief Aoun’s candidacy for the presidency – a job reserved for a Maronite Christian – was backed by many key political events in parliament in addition to the US, France and Saudi Arabia.

Hezbollah and its ally, Amal, voted for him within the second spherical of final Thursday’s presidential election following the withdrawal of their most popular candidate.

After the election, Aoun declared that “a brand new part in Lebanon’s historical past” had begun and vowed to work to make sure that the Lebanese state had “the unique proper to bear arms” – a reference to Hezbollah, which had constructed a power thought-about extra highly effective than the military to withstand Israel earlier than their 13-month battle in violation of a UN Safety Council decision.

The military was not concerned within the battle and has a key function underneath the ceasefire deal agreed between the Lebanese and Israeli governments on the finish of November. It’s required to deploy troopers in southern Lebanon as Israeli troops withdraw and to make sure Hezbollah ends its armed presence there by 26 January.

Aoun additionally promised to assist the brand new authorities push via the political and financial reforms extensively seen as essential in a rustic that has been affected by a number of crises.

Moreover the Hezbollah-Israel battle, they embrace a six-year-long financial melancholy that is likely one of the worst recorded in fashionable instances, and the 2020 Beirut port explosion that killed greater than 200 folks.