The new cabinet was unveiled Thursday during a presser at the presidential palace in the capital, Beirut, after rival political factions managed to hammer out their differences over the government line-up.
The new government -- headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri
Second son of Rafik Hariri, the Leb PM who was assassinated in 2005. He has was prime minister in his own right from 2009 through early 2011. He was born in Riyadh to an Iraqi mother and graduated from Georgetown University. He managed his father's business interests in Riyadh until his father's assassination. When his father died he inherited a fortune of some $4.1 billion, which won't do him much good if Hizbullah has him bumped off, too.-- includes 30 ministers from most Lebanese political factions, which have been in talks after the country held in May 2018 its first parliamentary elections in nine years.
According to a statement by Leb's presidency, Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil from Parliament Speaker Nabih
KnobbyBerri
Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah
...
Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as
The Resistanceand purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory...
sock puppet...
's Amal party, and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who leads President
Michel Aoun...president of Leb, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah...
's Free Patriotic Movement
Despite its name a Christian party allied with Hizbullah, neither free nor particularly patriotic...
, have retained their positions in the new cabinet.
Leb's Hezbollah resistance movement has chosen Jamil Jabak as the new health minister, despite the fact that he is not a member of the movement.
'GOVT. WORK CAN NO LONGER WAIT'
Speaking following the announcement, Hariri voiced alarm about the country's economic and financial challenges, saying the time for dealing with problems with "painkillers" is over.
"The time of treatment with painkillers is over. No one can put their head in the sand anymore. Matters are as clear as the sun. All the problems are known and the causes of the corruption and waste and administrative deficiency are also known," the prime minister said.
"Lebanese are living in concern about the economic situation," Hariri said, adding that the government's work could not wait.
Since the May 2015 election, the last Hariri government, which has been appointed in 2016, has been in office in a caretaker capacity.
That election saw Hariri lose over a third of his MPs; however, but kept his status as the leading Sunni Moslem, which enabled him to return as prime minister, a position reserved for his sect under Lebanese law.