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| Lebanon's new Prime Minister Nawaf Salam | Photo: Reuters |
Nawaf Salam, the president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has been nominated as Lebanon's prime minister, in a stunning turnaround for the crisis-ridden country.
The office of newly elected Lebanese President Joseph Aoun asked Nawaf Salam to form a government on Monday, after a majority of the country's lawmakers backed him during consultations with Joseph Aoun.
The election of Joseph Aoun as president and the nomination of Nawaf Salam as prime minister ended more than two years of deadlock in the country's governance. The post of president of Lebanon has been vacant since October 2022. Until now, the country's cabinet has been run in a caretaker capacity.
After strong pressure from Saudi Arabia, Joseph Aoun was elected president in a vote in Lebanon's parliament on Thursday, and discussions began on nominating the country's next prime minister.
Nawaf Salam has run for prime minister twice in recent years. He is widely known as a reformist. He is a Sunni Muslim. And only Sunni Muslims can be prime ministers in Lebanon.
The judge gained international fame last year after being elected head of the ICJ by leading South Africa's genocide case against Israel and other tribunals.
Some media outlets have compared Nawaf Salam's nomination as prime minister to a "tsunami." According to local media reports, he presented himself as a prime ministerial candidate on Sunday morning. Until then, incumbent caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati had been seen as the most likely candidate for the post.
Salam's nomination as prime minister is a major blow to Lebanon's armed group Hezbollah and its ally, the Shiite political party Amal, which is believed to have backed Najib Mikati for the prime minister's post. Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc leader, Mohammed Raad, told reporters that the move to nominate Salam sowed the seeds of "division" in the country. He hopes the cabinet will respect the country's confessional power-sharing agreement.