BEIRUT, 27 October 2004 — Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Omar Karameh formed a new 30-member Cabinet yesterday, with keys posts going to pro-Syrian figures and with women entering government for the first time in Lebanon’s history. “We had hoped for everyone to participate ... but we reiterate that this government is mobilized to serve Lebanon,” Karameh told reporters after a meeting with President Emile Lahoud and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
He was apparently referring to a boycott of the government by the Christian opposition as well as the bloc of influential Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who objected to last month’s Syrian-backed extension of Lahoud’s term. A presidential spokesman said the new Cabinet included two women, while figures close to Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon, figured prominently in a lineup that included 20 new members.
Sleiman Frangieh, a friend of Syrian President Bashar Assad, was appointed interior minister. The defense and foreign affairs portfolios went to pro-Syrians Abdul Rahim Mrad and Mahmud Hammud, respectively. Economist and former minister Elias Saba was named finance minister, in a country suffering from a debt of more $35 billion.
Layla Solh, daughter of Riad Solh who was Lebanon’s prime minister at the country’s 1943 independence from France, was named minister of industry. Wafaa Hamza, a senior official at the Agriculture Ministry close to Berri, was appointed a minister of state. “Women make up half of our society, and they have long been asking for that,” explained Karameh.
The new Cabinet includes two leading bankers. Energy Minister Maurice Sehnawi chairs the Societe Generale de Banques au Liban and Economy Minister Adnan Kassar heads Fransabank. The two institutions are among the 10 leading banks in Lebanon.
The government is the fruit of several days of backroom bargaining in the face of international criticism over Syria’s role in the process. The 70-year-old Karameh was named by the pro-Syrian president after last week’s shock resignation of Rafik Hariri, who had headed the Lebanese government for most of the past 12 years. The departure of Hariri, credited with helping rebuild Lebanon after 15 years of devastating civil war, has also triggered fears about the future of the country’s debt-laden economy. Lebanese newspapers said a major obstacle to the creation of the new Cabinet was removed after Elias Murr, the outgoing interior minister and Lahoud’s son-in-law, agreed not to stay on.
Frangieh, who was health minister under the Hariri government, had insisted on taking the Interior Ministry or nothing. The move was seen as a political blow to Lahoud. Under the constitution drawn up after 1975-1990 war, Lebanon’s Cabinet must have an equal representation of Christians and Muslims, headed by a Sunni Muslim prime minister.
