After more than two years of political deadlock under an interim cabinet and several weeks of talks with rival political parties, the Lebanese parliament formed a new government on Saturday. President Joseph Aoun and newly-appointed Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, a former ambassador and International Court of Justice president, face the difficult task of bringing the country out of economic crisis and maintaining a fragile ceasefire with Israel in the face of domestic turmoil.
Background
- Lebanon has been in a state of political crisis for several years, plagued by endemic corruption, economic collapse, the Beirut port explosion, and nearly a year of Israeli bombardment.
- The country has maintained a complex power-sharing agreement in government since the 1989 Taif agreement, traditionally providing proportional representation to minority groups through cabinet appointments.
- Salam has departed somewhat from this approach to governance by appointing a “cabinet of experts” ostensibly free of party affiliation, though reflections of the arrangement remain apparent.
- Two major priorities for the new cabinet are to secure international aid and investment to rebuild the country and to uphold the terms of the November ceasefire, which Israel has violated several times in recent weeks.
- The formation of the new government is promising for the reform movement and represents the end of a destructive deadlock. Still, the wholesale exclusion of Hezbollah from legislative processes could have unintended consequences for future stability.
Cautious Optimism from the Lebanese Public
- Much of the Lebanese public is “cautiously optimistic” about Salam’s appointment, seeing the establishment of an accomplished international diplomat and a qualified cabinet as a potential turning point in the country’s turbulent governance.
- Israel’s aggressive campaign against Hezbollah, the fall of al-Assad in Syria, and domestic crises have brought Lebanese politics to a breaking point, and some feel that the new government has a mandate and wide license to “rescue, reform, and rebuild” the struggling economy through comprehensive reform.
- The cabinet, which recently met for the first time, contains several high-profile technocrats who have previously worked with the World Bank and IMF, setting the government up to benefit from funds from the international monetary system.
Hezbollah Largely Excluded from Legislative Process
- Though the formation of a new government may be promising for Lebanon’s short-term security, the near-complete exclusion of Hezbollah from the governing coalition could negatively impact political stability.
- Hezbollah and allied party Amal have enjoyed considerable power in government processes since 2008. Since the Lebanese constitution requires two-thirds of the cabinet to approve any major decisions, Hezbollah’s ability to maintain a “blocking third” through its ministers and coalitions has been able to block significant legislative action.
- In Salam’s cabinet, however, Hezbollah has lost its traditional posts and been formally excluded from the legislative process, a controversial move made more achievable through the party’s military setbacks over the past year.
- Though new Finance Minister Yassine Jaber was previously part of the Hezbollah-allied Amal bloc, the lack of cabinet posts explicitly provided to Hezbollah’s political representatives presents a departure from traditional Lebanese politics.
U.S. Pursues Unusually Direct Intervention
- While the exclusion of Hezbollah is partially in line with Salam’s new anti-consociational approach, it’s clear that external forces played a major role in the exclusion of Hezbollah from the new government.
- U.S. deputy Middle East envoy Morgan Ortagus said this week that the Trump administration placed a “red line” on the exclusion of Hezbollah, and publicly thanked Israel for ensuring the party was “militarily defeated” during a visit to Beirut, prompting protests and allegations of foreign interference throughout the country.
- Though Aoun and Salam have made concerted efforts to communicate with Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc and rhetorically endorsed an ideologically-inclusive government, the former’s promise to “monopolize force in the hands of the Lebanese state” and the latter’s commitment to implement the ceasefire agreement to disarm Hezbollah could set the stage for future substate conflicts in the Shi’ite-majority south.
(Banner image: Eusebius)