BEIRUT - Lebanon’s prime minister formed a Cabinet on Saturday more than 10 months after taking office, including a wide range of political groups after bridging serious divisions among them, mostly over Syria’s civil war.
Tammam Salam, a U.K.-educated businessman and son of the late Lebanese Premier Saeb Salam, was appointed the country’s prime minister, ending months of political disagreement that blocked the formation of a Cabinet.
Salam’s 24-member national unity Cabinet was announced at the presidential palace and includes members of the Western-backed coalition as well as those of the Iran-backed Hezbollah group and its allies.
Salam, 68, named Ali Hassan Khalil as finance minister, while Arthur Nazarian was given the energy portfolio, Cabinet Secretary General Suhail Bouji said in an announcement broadcast Saturday on Future TV.
“We have liberated all Cabinet portfolios of sectarian and confessional representation,” said Salam in a speech after his appointment. Religious and political affiliations have played a role in previous governments.
Fears of a spillover of Syria’s civil war to its smaller neighbor have intensified pressure on Lebanon’s rival faction to make concessions, facilitating Salam’s job.
“This is a unity Cabinet that represents at the present time the best formula for Lebanon with all the political, security, economic and social challenges it is facing,” Salam said shortly after his government was announced. “The national interest Cabinet was formed with the spirit of gathering, not divisions, and meeting, not defiance.”
Salam said the Cabinet aims to “strengthen national security and stand against all kinds of terrorism.” He said that the Cabinet also will face the social issue of nearly a million Syrian refugees who fled for safety in Lebanon, which has a population of some 4 million.
The Cabinet is not expected to remain in office long, as a new government should be formed after President Michel Suleiman’s six-year term ends in May and a new head of state is elected.
The Syrian civil war has spilled over into neighboring Lebanon and sharply divided its population, who support rival Syrian groups.
Many Shiite Muslims in Lebanon back Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, while Sunnis support rebels trying to remove him from power.
Clashes between pro- and anti-Assad groups have killed scores of Lebanese in the past months. A wave of car bombs also claimed the lives of dozens.
Hezbollah openly sent fighters to Syria last year to fight along Assad’s forces, while some Sunnis have joined the rebels.
The Western-backed coalition, known as March 14, had previously said it will not take part in any national unity government until the militant Hezbollah group, Lebanon’s most powerful, withdraws its members fighting in Syria.
March 14’s leader, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, said last month that he is ready to share power with Hezbollah if it helps in ending the Cabinet formation deadlock.
Hezbollah also has abandoned an earlier demand that it be given, along with its allies, veto power in the new Cabinet.
In April last year, the vast majority of legislators chose Salam to form the Cabinet. He replaced Najib Mikati, who abruptly resigned a month earlier over a political deadlock between Lebanon’s two main political camps and infighting in his government.
Mikati, who had served as prime minister since June 2011, headed a government that was dominated by Hezbollah and its allies.
Salam leans politically toward the Western-backed anti-Hezbollah coalition. He has degrees in economics and business administration.
He will be holding the top post in the country that a Sunni Muslim can hold.
Lebanon’s politics are always fractious, in part because of the sectarian makeup of the country’s government.
According to Lebanon’s power-sharing system, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shiite Muslim.
Each faith makes up about a third of Lebanon’s population.
Salam’s Cabinet included only one woman, Alice Shabtini, who was named minister of displaced people.
As in the previous government, Hezbollah holds two posts.
Information for this article was contributed by Deema Almashabi and Donna Abu-Nasr of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 02/16/2014