ReutersNawaf Salam, president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, has been named Lebanon’s new prime minister.
In consultation with newly elected President Joseph Aoun, two-thirds of the 128-member parliament voted to install the 71-year-old judge in a post reserved for a Sunni Muslim under a sectarian power-sharing system. Nominated. Interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati received nine votes.
The presidential palace announced that Salam would return to Lebanon on Tuesday.
His appointment was a further blow to Hezbollah, which had sought to re-elect Mikati but did not nominate a candidate. Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militias and political parties have been greatly weakened by the recent war with Israel.
Mohammed Raad, a senior Hezbollah lawmaker, accused the opposition of working for division and exclusion.
He complained that his group had “opened its arms” by supporting Aoun’s election, only to have its “hands cut off”, adding: “There is no legitimacy for any government that is in conflict with coexistence. Not at all,” he warned.
However, Hezbollah’s Christian and Sunni allies supported Salam.
Gebran Bashir, leader of Lebanon’s largest Maronite Christian group, called him “the face of reform.” Meanwhile, Sunni lawmaker Faisal Karami said he nominated the ICJ chief because of his calls for “change and renewal” and promises of international support for Lebanon.
Salam is a member of a prominent Sunni family from Beirut. His uncle Salam helped Lebanon gain independence from France in 1943 and served several terms as prime minister. His cousin Tammam also served as prime minister from 2014 to 2016.
He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Poly Sciences University of France, a PhD in History from the Sorbonne University, and a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School.
Salam served as a lawyer and lecturer at several universities before serving as New York’s permanent representative to the United Nations from 2007 to 2017.
He became a member of the UN’s highest court, the ICJ, in 2018 and was elected president for a three-year term in February last year. He took over the ICJ’s role in hearing a case brought by South Africa alleging that Israeli forces committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel dismissed the claims as baseless.
Now that he has been appointed prime minister by President Aoun, Salam must agree on a cabinet that can win a vote of confidence in Lebanon’s deeply divided parliament.
Former Lebanese army commander Aoun’s presidential candidacy – a role given to Maronite Christians – was supported by many major parties in parliament, as well as the US, France and Saudi Arabia.
Hezbollah and its ally Amal voted for Hezbollah in the second round of the presidential election last Thursday, following the withdrawal of its preferred candidate.
After the election, Aoun declared that a “new phase in Lebanon’s history” had begun and vowed to work to ensure the Lebanese state’s “exclusive right to bear arms.” This is a reference to Hezbollah, which has built what is considered a more powerful force. Rather than the military resisting Israel before the 13-month Israeli conflict in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
The military is not involved in the war and has a key role under a cease-fire agreement reached between the Lebanese and Israeli governments in late November. Hezbollah is required to deploy soldiers to southern Lebanon as Israeli troops withdraw, and to ensure that Hezbollah ends its military presence in southern Lebanon by January 26th.
Aoun also pledged to help the new government pursue political and economic reforms widely seen as necessary in a country affected by multiple crises.
Besides the Hezbollah-Israel conflict, it also includes a six-year economic recession, one of the worst recorded in modern times, and the 2020 Beirut port explosion that killed more than 200 people.
