Region

BEIRUT — Lebanon's new prime minister-designate Najib Mikati on Tuesday held consultations with political parties that he said "unanimously" agreed on the need to put together a government quickly to rescue the crisis-hit country.

But after nearly a year of extreme drift, an economic crisis described by the World Bank as one of the world's worst since the 1850's and continued squabbling among political players, he faces an uphill battle.

Mikati, a billionaire who has already twice served as prime minister, took on the task on Monday, days after fellow veteran politician Saad Hariri threw in the towel.

The last government resigned amid public outrage over a deadly explosion of hundreds of tonnes of poorly stored fertiliser at Beirut Port last August.

The institutional vacuum is holding up a potential financial rescue plan for the country, which defaulted on its debt last year.

On Tuesday, Mikati met with top political parties, including the powerful Hizbollah movement and the Free Patriotic Movement founded by President Michel Aoun.

"There was unanimous agreement from all blocs and lawmakers on the need to speed up the process of Cabinet formation," Mikati said after consultations ended.

The meetings are the customary official step that follows a new prime minister's designation, but the high-stakes horse-trading has yet to even begin.

Scepticism 

Following a meeting with Mikati, Hezbollah lawmaker Mohammad Raad said his party is ready to "cooperate seriously" with the new PM-designate.

FPM chief Gebran Bassil, accused by critics of repeatedly obstructing previous efforts to form a new government, said his party would stand aside this time.

We will "not to participate in the next Cabinet, which means we will not get involved in the formation process".

In an interview with the An-Nahar newspaper, Mikati vowed his lineup would be "purely technical" and tasked with bridging the gap to elections due next year.

Several lawmakers, including Deputy Speaker Elie Ferzli, backed this push on Tuesday.

“The government will consist of specialists,” Ferzli said. “As for the nominating process, it will rest on Mikati and his agreements with the president.”

The designation of 65-year-old Mikati, Lebanon’s richest man and to many a symbol of its corrupt oligarchy, was met with general scepticism.

A native of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second city and one of its poorest, he was accused by a state prosecutor in 2019 of illicit enrichment, a charge he denies.

“How can I trust a thief who stole from me and my children and their future?” asked 57-year-old Beirut resident Mohammed Deeb, after Mikati’s designation.

“As long as this [political] class is still in power, nothing will change.”

On Sunday evening, dozens of protesters gathered outside Mikati’s Beirut home, accusing him of corruption and cronyism.

Most aid blocked 

Lebanon’s former colonial ruler France and other Western governments stopped short of welcoming Mikati’s designation and simply urged him to swiftly deliver a competent lineup.

But Lebanon’s bickering politicians view Mikati as a consensus candidate, who may be capable of easing the near-year-long political deadlock.

Mikati, the third politician in a year to attempt the job, promised his government would work on implementing a French roadmap conditioning a huge aid package on reform and transparency.

In some of his first comments after his designation, Mikati said he would prioritise what little international aid is currently available towards addressing severe power blackouts, according to the Al Akhbar newspaper.

Lebanon can no longer provide mains electricity to its citizens for more than a handful of hours each day, nor can it afford to buy the fuel needed to power generators.

Almost none of the international community’s demands for a broad programme of reforms have so far been met.

Further stalling the bankrupt state’s recapitalisation has been the government’s failure to engage the International Monetary Fund and discuss a fully-fledged rescue plan.

Until then, the monetary institution is due to send around $900 million, but experts warn it will not be enough and risks being misused.

TUNIS — Opponents of Tunisia's President Kais Saied, who sparked a crisis by ousting the premier and suspending parliament, challenged him on Tuesday to hold new elections instead of building an "autocratic regime".

The moderate Islamist Ennahdha party, which was the strongest group in the coalition government, has labelled Sunday's power grab a "coup d'etat" while the US, EU and other powers have also voiced strong concern.

Ennahdha on Tuesday challenged the president to call new legislative and presidential elections, warning against any delay that would be "a pretext to maintain an autocratic regime".

The party also accused Saied of having "worked with undemocratic forces to overturn the constitutional rights of elected officials, and replace them with members of his own chosen cabal".

After violent clashes Monday, it claimed "organised thugs" were being used to "provoke bloodshed and chaos", and urged its supporters "to go home in the interests of maintaining the peace and security of our nation".

The young North African democracy of 12 million people, the cradle of the Arab Spring uprisings a decade ago, was thrust into a constitutional crisis on Sunday.

Saied appeared on national television to declare he had dismissed the premier, Hichem Mechichi, and ordered parliament closed for 30 days, later sending army troops to the legislature and the prime minister's office.

The president's actions, ostensibly "to save Tunisia", followed a day of street protests against the government's poor handling of the COVID pandemic, which has claimed one of the world's highest official per-capita death tolls in Tunisia.

The president also said he would pick a new prime minister, lifted the parliamentary immunity of lawmakers, and warned armed opposition would be met with a "rain of bullets". He later fired the defence and justice ministers.

'Principles of democracy' 

Street clashes between his backers and opponents broke out Monday outside the barricaded parliament, leaving several people wounded.

Police also shuttered the TV station of Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera.

The office of the Tunisian parliament, chaired by Ennahdha leader Rached Ghannouchi, late Monday voiced its “absolute rejection and strong condemnation” of the president’s actions.

Many Tunisians have expressed support for the president, and thousands flooded the streets to celebrate on Sunday night, while others voiced fear of a return to dictatorship.

The French language newspaper Le Quotidien on Tuesday wrote that Saied’s “kick... in the parliamentary ant hill has taken many people by surprise, starting with Ennahdha”.

The young democracy had often been cited as the sole success story of the Arab Spring, the tumult sparked across the region after Mohamed Bouazizi, a university graduate who could only find work as a fruit vendor, self-immolated in December 2010.

Tunisia is seen as a key to regional stability, located between Algeria which faces political turmoil and war-battered Libya, from where every year thousands of desperate migrants seek to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, with many dying along the way.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday spoke by telephone with Saied and urged him “to adhere to the principles of democracy and human rights that are the basis of governance in Tunisia”.

The top US diplomat urged Saied to “maintain open dialogue with all political actors and the Tunisian people”, the State Department said.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday urged “the resumption of parliamentary activity, respect for fundamental rights and an abstention from all forms of violence”.

BENGHAZI, Libya — A Libyan militia gang leader accused of major human rights violations has been shot dead at a farm in the eastern city of Benghazi, a military source told AFP Tuesday.

Mohammed Al Kani was gunned down after resisting members of the military who had arrived bearing an arrest warrant accusing him of war crimes, the source who requested anonymity added.

Kani led the Kaniyat, a gang of six brothers who commanded a militia that traumatised the town of Tarhuna in war-ravaged Libya, systematically executing not only their opponents but slaughtering their entire families.

The brothers paraded through the town some 80 kilometres southeast of the capital in shows of force — with a pair of leashed lions roaring at the crowd.

Libya has been ravaged by conflict since the fall and killing of veteran dictator Muammar Qadhafi in a NATO-backed 2011 revolt, and an array of armed groups and militia forces arose to fill the vacuum.

In Tarhuna, it was Kaniyat militia that took power in 2015.

It first supported the internationally backed government in Tripoli, but later switched sides and backed eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar, main rival of the Tripoli government.

Human Rights Watch says at least 338 people were abducted or reported missing during the five-year rule of the Kaniyat in Tarhuna.

The brothers were toppled from power last year, but their shadow still hangs over the town.

So far, 150 bodies have been exhumed in a slow process that began in June 2020 after the town was captured from Haftar’s forces.

Last November the United States Treasury announced sanctions against the Kaniyat, and in May this year, Britain also imposed sanctions on the brothers over their “reign of terror” in Tarhuna.

An interim unity government came into being in Libya in March, replacing the rival administrations in Tripoli and in the east, ahead of elections in December this year.

TUNIS — Tunisian President Kais Saied sacked the defence minister on Monday, a day after ousting the prime minister and suspending parliament, plunging the young democracy into constitutional crisis in the midst of a pandemic.

Street clashes erupted on Monday outside the army-barricaded parliament, after Saied dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and ordered parliament closed for 30 days, a move the biggest political party Ennahdha decried as a "coup".

Saied declared on Sunday that he had "taken the necessary decisions to save Tunisia, the state and the Tunisian people", following street protests in multiple cities against the government's handling of the COVID pandemic.

The president, who under the constitution controls the armed forces, warned his opponents against taking up arms, threatening that if anyone "fires a single bullet, our forces will respond with a rain of bullets".

On Monday afternoon, a statement from the presidency announced the dismissals of Defence Minister Ibrahim Bartaji and acting justice minister Hasna Ben Slimane, who is also the government spokeswoman.

'Very dangerous' 

Soldiers from early Monday blockaded the assembly in Tunis while Saied backers hurled stones, bottles and insults at supporters of the Islamist-inspired Ennahdha, whose leader was barred entry to the complex.

Troops also surrounded the office of Mechichi, who was yet to officially react to the events rocking the North African country.

Later in the afternoon, the protests died down.

Saied's dramatic move — a decade on from Tunisia's 2011 revolution, often held up as the Arab Spring's sole success story — comes even though the constitution enshrines a parliamentary democracy.

It "is a coup d'etat against the revolution and against the constitution", said Ennahdha, the lead party in Tunisia's fractious ruling coalition charged, warning its members "will defend the revolution".

The crisis follows months of deadlock between the president, the premier and Ennahdha chief Rached Ghannouchi, which has crippled the COVID response as deaths have surged to one of the world’s highest per capita rates.

Tunisia has recently been overwhelmed by COVID-19 cases which have raised the death toll to more than 18,000 in a nation of 12 million.

Police also shuttered the local bureau of Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, the network’s Tunis Director Lotfi Hajji said, warning that “what is happening is very dangerous, it is proof that freedom of the press is threatened”.

‘Imminent danger’ 

The powerful Tunisian General Labour Union which played a key role in the 2011 uprising, said the president acted “in accordance” with the constitution to “prevent imminent danger and to restore the normal functioning” of the state.

Saied’s power-grab sparked jubilant rallies late Sunday by thousands of his supporters who flooded the streets of Tunis, waving the national flag and sounding their car horns as fireworks lit up the sky.

But the shock move was criticised abroad.

Germany urged a rapid “return to constitutional order” while the foreign ministry in Turkey, where the government supports Ennahdha, called for “democratic legitimacy” to be restored.

Since Saied was elected in 2019, he has been locked in a showdown with Mechichi and Ghannouchi, who is also house speaker.

The rivalry has blocked ministerial appointments and diverted resources from tackling Tunisia’s many economic and social problems.

In the chaotic scenes outside parliament Monday, Ghannouchi admonished an army officer who was blocking access and who had declared the troops were “the protectors of the nation”.

Ghannouchi retorted that “the Tunisian people will never accept an authoritarian government, whatever your efforts”.

Saied said he would assume executive power “with the help” of a government whose new chief he would appoint himself.

The president also lifted parliamentary immunity for lawmakers.

‘Birth of a dictator’ 

In the 10 years since Tunisia’s popular revolution toppled dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has had nine governments.

Some of them have lasted only a few months, hindering the reforms needed to revamp the country’s struggling economy and poor public services.

Sunday’s political drama began with mass protests against the government for its failures in tackling the pandemic.

“The people want the dissolution of parliament,” the crowd chanted outside parliament in Tunis. Protests were also reported in several other cities.

A senior Ennahdha official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, alleged that the protests and subsequent celebrations, had all been choreographed by the president.

After Saied’s announcement, one jubilant supporter, Nahla, brandisheda Tunisian flag and hailed the president’s “courageous decisions”.

“This is the president we love!,” she said.

But one man, aged in his forties, watched on without enthusiasm and said: “These fools are celebrating the birth of a new dictator.”

BEIRUT — Lebanese lawmakers on Monday tasked ex-premier and billionaire Najib Mikati with forming a government and ending one year of political deadlock that has crippled the economy.

A new government would face the daunting task of trying to steer Lebanon out of what the World Bank says is one of the world's worst financial crises in more than 150 years, and to polls due to take place next year.

Mikati, a 65-year-old telecommunications mogul seen by some as a symbol of Lebanon's corrupt oligarchy, called his designation a "difficult step" and urged the Lebanese people to support him.

"I don't have a magic wand and, alone, I can't make miracles happen," he said.

Mikati will pick up where his predecessor Saad Hariri left off earlier this month when he quit after failing to broker a deal despite intense international pressure.

He clinched more than 72 endorsements, the official National News Agency said, including from the powerful Hizbollah movement.

One MP voted in favour of veteran diplomat Nawaf Salam, while 42 others, including from President Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, abstained from endorsing any candidate.

It could take months before an actual government is formed, but crisis-hit Lebanon, grappling with soaring poverty, a plummeting currency and shortages of basic items from medicine to fuel, can ill afford any delays.

'Illicit enrichment' 

Mikati was last in power in 2014 and is the third PM-designate to be named since the caretaker government of Hassan Diab resigned in the wake of last August's monster blast at the Beirut Port.

He will now have to start consultations with Aoun and political factions to set a cabinet line-up, while Diab stays on in a caretaker capacity.

Speaking to reporters following a meeting with Aoun, the new PM-designate said: "If I didn't have the necessary guarantees from external powers... I would not have taken on" the job.

The Sunni Muslim businessman started a career in politics in 1998.

He is considered to be Lebanon’s richest man and one of the wealthiest in the Middle East, with a net worth of $2.7 billion according to Forbes.

Along with his brother and business partner Taha Mikati, the magnate owns the M1 Group, an international investment holding group with shares in South Africa’s telecom MTN Group and French fashion line Faconnable. He also has interests in real estate and oil and gas.

A native of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second city and one of its poorest, he was accused by a state prosecutor in 2019 of illicit enrichment, a charge he denies.

Many in Lebanon consider Mikati as emblematic of a corrupt ruling class targeted by a 2019 protest movement.

On the eve of consultations, dozens of protesters gathered outside Mikati’s Beirut home, accusing him of corruption and cronyism.

But Lebanon’s bickering politicians view Mikati as a consensus candidate who could be capable of easing a political impasse that has stymied efforts towards forming a government.

After his designation, the Lebanese pound, officially pegged to the dollar at 1,507, gained some of its black-market value after dropping to record lows in mid-July.

It sold for less than 17,000 to the greenback on Monday, up from more than 20,000 last week.

International aid 

Donors led by former colonial power France have pledged millions of dollars in humanitarian aid, but conditioned it on Lebanon installing a government capable of tackling corruption.

But even as international pressure mounted, with threats of European Union sanctions against them, Lebanese politicians have failed to make any serious progress.

France this month said it would host an aid conference on August 4 to “respond to the needs of the Lebanese, whose situation is deteriorating every day”.

The date of the conference coincides with the first anniversary of the port blast that killed more than 200 people, and which is widely blamed on decades of negligence by the country’s ruling class.

Mikati first rose to the post of prime minister in 2005, when he headed a three-month interim government formed in the wake of the murder of former premier Rafic Hariri, Saad Hariri’s father.

In 2011, he headed a government dominated by the Hizbollah movement that had to deal with the spillover effects of the Syrian war next door.

Mikati resigned in 2013 amid deep polarisation between Lebanese politicians over the Syria conflict, and as infighting in his own government led to a political impasse.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden, who will host Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhemi on Monday, is expected to launch a “new phase” of the US military presence in Iraq, formally ending combat operations but stopping short of announcing a full withdrawal.

The US troop presence in Iraq will be at the heart of Biden’s talks with Kadhemi, a weakened leader under intense pressure from pro-Tehran armed factions demanding the withdrawal of 2,500 US troops still deployed in the country.

The leaders will also discuss Washington’s support for fighting COVID-19, backing for the Iraqi private sector and cooperation on climate change, according to the White House.

But the main thrust is to provide Kadhemi — in power for little over a year — support to hold onto his job and keep up the fight against Daesh — while also keeping a damper on Iran’s influence in Iraq.

A senior US official who would not be identified praised Kadhemi for being pragmatic and “a problem solver rather than someone who tries to use problems for his own political interests”.

Ahead of the visit Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told Iraqi media the talks would set “a timetable for the withdrawal of American forces”.

But Washington wants to maintain a presence to at least support Iraqi forces fighting to prevent a revival of Daesh.

Last week the group, also known as ISIS, claimed a suicide bombing at a Baghdad market that killed 30 people.

“We’re talking about shifting to a new phase in the campaign in which we very much complete the combat mission against ISIS and shift to an advisory and training mission by the end of the year,” the senior US official said.

The official predicted “additional adjustments” could be made by the end of 2021.

“Iraq has requested, and we very much agree, that they need continued training, support with logistics, intelligence, advisory capacity building — all of which will continue,” the official said.

That suggested that many, if not all, of the 2,500 US troops in the country would remain, but in a support and not “combat” role.

The official said the change was “far more than semantics”, though US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Sunday US troops can perform both combat and advisory missions.

“All of our troops are capable of doing multiple things,” Austin told reporters.

Biden and Kadhemi are due to meet at 2:00pm Washington time (18:00 GMT) and have not scheduled a joint press conference, although a statement is to be issued.

Balancing act 

With three months to go before legislative elections, Kadhemi — whose country has been ravaged by violence, poverty and corruption — is hoping to regain ground with powerful pro-Iran political factions, which are overtly hostile to the US presence.

He was expected to persuade Washington to ease some sanctions relating to Iran, to help Iraq honour crucial transactions with its neighbour and tackle ongoing electric power shortages.

But with Iraq an important strategic partner for the United States in the region, Washington is unlikely to agree to a full pullout that would cede influence to Tehran.

Ramzy Mardini, an Iraq specialist at the University of Chicago’s Pearson Institute, believes the Biden-Kadhemi meeting may cosmetically be “shaped” to help the Iraqi premier alleviate domestic pressures, “but the reality on the ground will reflect the status quo and an enduring US presence”.

Remaining, however, also has its risks.

“If there is no significant announcement on the withdrawal of troops, I fear that the pro-Iran groups may... increase attacks on the US forces,” Iraqi researcher Sajad Jiyad told AFP.

A drone attack was carried out Friday on a military base in Iraqi Kurdistan that hosts American troops, but did not cause any casualties.

The Iraqi Resistance Coordination Committee, a group of militia factions, threatened to continue the attacks unless the United States withdraws all its forces and ends the “occupation”.