Details of New Government's Line-Up Emerge

The new government will be techno-political and will consist of 24 ministers – six political figures as state ministers and 18 technocrats and representatives of the protest movement, media reports said on Tuesday evening, as the engineer and businessman Samir Khatib emerged as a consensus candidate for the PM-designate post.

“The ministers Ali Hassan Khalil, Mohammed Fneish and Salim Jreissati will certainly return as state ministers in the new government, while Speaker Nabih Berri is clinging to the finance portfolio, PM Saad Hariri is insisting on the interior portfolio and Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil is clinging to the energy portfolio,” al-Jadeed TV quoted sources as saying.

“Six seats will go to the popular protest movement while two seats will be allocated to the Druze community, and if (Progressive Socialist Party chief Walid) Jumblat refuses to participate, one of the seats will go to the Lebanese Democratic Party while the other will go to the protest movement,” the sources added.

As for the Christian share, seven seats will go to the Free Patriotic Movement and President Michel Aoun, a seat will go to the Tashnag Party, a seat to the Marada Movement and three will go to the protest movement, the sources said.

“No agreement has been reached on granting the government any extraordinary powers and it will work on devising a new electoral law,” the sources went on to say.