Home >> Middle East >> Syria & Lebanon  Email  Print New Lebanese PM Bids to Form a Caretaker Government Manuela Paraipan - 4/19/2005 The designated Prime Minister, Omar Karami resigned because of his inability to form a caretaker government. If the proverb, when there is a will, there is a way usually works, Omar Karami complained about the obstacles the opposition and his pro-Syrain gathering, Ain El Tineh put in front of his attempts to form a neutral government.
That being the case, the opposition and the pro-Syrain camp agreed to name a new PM in the person of Najib Mikati, a telecommunitions tycoon and a moderate pro-Syrian politician.The opposition surprisingly backed Mikati's nomination last week as a compromise in their attempt to speed up the election process.
The new PM has two weeks to form a new government, in order to ensure that Parliamentary electiosn will be held before the 31 of May, when the mandate of the existing Parliament will end.
The Lebanese media quoted PM Mikati saying that he is looking to form a small cabinet of ministers who are not current members of political parties, and will not run for elections. His cabinet priority is to have an electoral law accepted by all parties, either based on mouhafaza (large governorates) or based on qadas (small districts) as Patriarch Sfeir is asking, and to hold parlaimentary elections "as soon as possible."
PM Mikati has already met President Lahoud, and is suposed to meet this week the House Speaker, Nabih Berri who is also the initiator of the Ain El Tineh gathering, as opposed to the Bristol gathering of Bahia Hariri, Walid Jumblatt and the others members of the opposition.
Lebanon has been without a government since February, when Prime Minister Omar Karami quit in the face of large street protests against his pro-Syrian government after Hariri's killing, which most of the Lebanese blamed on Syria.
The US, EU and the United Nations have insisted on the Syrians complete withdrawal before the polls in order for the vote to be free and fair. Manuela Paraipan has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, World Security Network (WSN), World Press, Yemen Times and other publications.
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