Saad Hariri named Lebanon's new prime minister

Leading Sunni political figure Saad Hariri was named as Lebanon's new prime minister on Thursday, the office of President Michel Aoun announced.

"After the necessary parliamentary consultations... the president has entrusted Saad Hariri with the formation of a government," said a statement read by the president's chief of staff Antoine Choukeir.



PHOTO: REUTERS

The nomination comes days after Aoun was elected, with Hariri's surprise support, ending a vacuum of more than two years. Hariri was endorsed by 110 members of the 127-seat parliament, with only the Shiite Hezbollah movement, the Syrian Social National Party and the Lebanese Baath party -- all supporters of Syria's government -- declining to back him as prime minister.

But his return was assured as part of the deal he struck to throw his support behind former general Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally.



Hariri returns to the post of prime minister five years after his last cabinet collapsed when his longtime rival Hezbollah and its allies pulled their ministers from a unity government that had taken months to form.