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Berri to Asharq Al-Awsat: Mikati’s Designation Won’t Face Constitutional Obstacle

Hariri (R) and Mikati (L) after a meeting of former prime ministers on Sunday. (Hariri's press office)
Hariri (R) and Mikati (L) after a meeting of former prime ministers on Sunday. (Hariri's press office)
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Berri to Asharq Al-Awsat: Mikati’s Designation Won’t Face Constitutional Obstacle

Hariri (R) and Mikati (L) after a meeting of former prime ministers on Sunday. (Hariri's press office)
Hariri (R) and Mikati (L) after a meeting of former prime ministers on Sunday. (Hariri's press office)

Binding parliamentary consultations to designate a new prime minister to form a government kick off in Lebanon on Monday some two weeks after Saad al-Hariri quit the task nine months after his appointment.

Hariri stepped down from the job due to persistent disputes with President Michel Aoun.

Former PM Najib Mikati appears to be the only candidate to form a new cabinet after the Free Patriotic Movement, which was founded by Aoun and now headed by his son-in-law Gebran Bassil, retracted its naming of former ambassador Nawwaf Salam. Significantly, the FPM also did not retract its objection to Mikati’s designation.

The consultations will kick off with a meeting between Aoun and parliament Speaker Nabih Berri at the presidential palace in Baabda. Parliamentary blocs will then meet with the president to name their candidate.

Leading up to the consultations, it appears that the largest Christian blocs – the FPM and Lebanese Forces – will not nominate Mikati.

As it stands, he is likely to garner the votes of Sunni figures, as well as the Shiite Hezbollah. The Iran-backed party had notable abstained from naming Hariri last year.

Berri told Asharq Al-Awsat that the conditions ahead of the consultations appear positive and Mikati is the likeliest figure to be nominated.

Moreover, he said the failure of the FPM and LF from voting in favor of Mikati will not render his designation “unconstitutional from a sectarian perspective”.

Such constitutional conditions do not apply in the designation of a prime minister, rather they figure in the actual government formation process, he explained.

Berri speculated that some 20 Christian MPs who are not affiliated with the FPM and LF will name Mikati to form a cabinet.

Former prime ministers Mikati, Fouad Siniora, Hariri and Tammam Salam had met at Hariri’s residence on Sunday to name Mikati as their preferred candidate.

The Progressive Socialist Party headed by former MP Walid Jumblatt had also met on Sunday and agreed to designate Mikati.

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Lebanon Military Says One Soldier Killed, 18 Hurt in Israeli Strike on Army Center

Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
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Lebanon Military Says One Soldier Killed, 18 Hurt in Israeli Strike on Army Center

Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb
Lebanese army soldiers and people stand at the site of an Israeli strike in the town of Baaloul, in the western Bekaa Valley, Lebanon October 19, 2024. REUTERS/Maher Abou Taleb

An Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center on Sunday killed one soldier and wounded 18 others, the Lebanese military said.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops, even as the military has largely kept to the sidelines in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has said previous strikes on Lebanese troops were accidental and that they are not a target of its campaign against Hezbollah.

Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.

The strike occurred in southwestern Lebanon on the coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.

Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes since the rocket fire began, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war, as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah's top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.

Israeli airstrikes early Saturday pounded central Beirut, killing at least 20 people and wounding 66, according to Lebanon's Health Ministry. Hezbollah has continued to fire regular barrages into Israel, forcing people to race for shelters and occasionally killing or wounding them.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel's ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country's north.

Hezbollah fired barrages of rockets into northern and central Israel on Sunday, some of which were intercepted.

Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said it was treating two people in the central city of Petah Tikva, a 23-year-old man who was lightly wounded by a blast and a 70-year-old woman suffering from smoke inhalation from a car that caught fire. The first responders said they also treated two women in their 50s who were wounded in northern Israel.

It was unclear whether the injuries and damage were caused by the rockets or interceptors.

The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.

The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of UN peacekeepers.