The Director General of the Presidency of the Republic announced the assignment of Judge Nawaf Salam to form the new government. He is currently outside Lebanon and will return tomorrow.
The tripartite meeting between President Joseph Aoun, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, and Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam will be held tomorrow at 12:00 noon.
Judge Salam received 85 votes, compared to 9 votes for Prime Minister Mikati and 34 blank votes , after a long day of parliamentary consultations and controversy over the division of parliamentary blocs between naming the current caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Judge Nawaf Salam.
Judge Salam left The Hague heading to Beirut and is expected to arrive tomorrow morning, while President Nabih Berri arrived at Baabda Palace at 4:30.
It is worth noting that this is the fifth time that Nawaf Salam’s name has been put forward, after the October 17, 2019 uprising, when his name was circulated for the first time to head the government.
Starting at 8:15 am, the binding parliamentary consultations was held by President of the Republic General Joseph Aoun to designate a prime minister to form the first government of his term. The consultations were held in two stages, before and after noon. What was striking during the consultations was the request of Hezbollah’s bloc to postpone the meeting date until tomorrow, which President Aoun refused. The bloc attended and arrived at Baabda Palace around 4 pm. As for MP Jamil Sayyed of Hezbollah’s bloc , he said that he would vote for Mikati only if his votes were equal to Salam’s, so his vote was not counted for anyone.
Who is Nawaf Salam?
Nawaf Salam , 72 is a Lebanese diplomat, jurist, and academic. He currently serves as the 27th president of the International Court of Justice. He was elected on 9 November 2017 as judge on the International Court of Justice for the 2018–2027 term, having received a concurrent majority of votes in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.
He served as Lebanon’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York from 2007 to 2017, during which period he held the positions of President of the Security Council and Vice President of the General Assembly. He was elected as president of the International Court of Justice on 6 February 2024. Salam is the second Arab to be elected as president and the first Lebanese judge.
Nawaf was born into a prominent family from Beirut, His, grandfather, Salim Salam, was the leader of the “Beirut Reform Movement”, his uncle, Saeb Salam, fought for Lebanon’s independence from the French Mandate of Lebanon and subsequently served four times as Prime Minister of Lebanon between 1952 and 1973. His cousin Tammam Salam was also Prime Minister of Lebanon between 2014 and 2016.
Salam received a doctorate in political science from the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) (1992), an LLM from Harvard Law School (1991), a doctorate in history from Sorbonne University (1979), and a Diploma from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (1974).
If he is designated by president Joseph Aoun and if his cabinet succeeds in getting the Parliament’s vote of confidence he will be the most qualified statesman Lebanon has ever had