Finally:

Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati announced he has succeeded in forming a new government, after a month and a half of political wrangling by pro-Syrian and opposition politicians.

Lebanon’s fledgling Prime Minister Najib Mikati made the eagerly-waited announcement that he had put together a new government at the presidential palace.

The government, with those named today, he insisted, will be a short-term administration, destined to supervise parliamentary elections, quickly, and within the constitutional time frame, “God willing,” as he put it.

Mr. Mikati denied that there had been a tug-of-war between Lebanon’s opposition movement and pro-Syrian politicians, in choosing his ministers.

Just 14 ministers make up the new government, which has representatives from Lebanon’s major religious communities. The previous government of out-going Prime Minister Omar Karami was nearly double its size, with more than 30 ministers.

The Beirut press says opposition and pro-Syrian leaders had compromised in order to avoid further political and economic turmoil.

Christian opposition leader Dory Chamoun expressed some displeasure, noting that the new government was made up completely of loyalist, or pro-Syrian politicians:

“It is mostly a loyalist composition, in other words, most of the guys inside are all of the loyalist camp, said Mr. Chamoun. ???????None of them are from the opposition.”

Despite some reservations, Mr. Chamoun added that the opposition would be satisfied if the government fulfilled its obligations to hold parliamentary elections this May.

Here is a list of the new ministers. And the quote of the day:

“As I said, it does not make much difference how you scratch your ear, as long as you scratch it,” he added.

Or any other place, for that matter. Actually, Mustapha doesn’t think badly of the new PM who has been labeled “pro-Syria” and has some interesting thoughts on him.

When Najib Mikati first appeared in the Tripoli political scene back in 2000, everyone knew that this billionaire businessman-turned-politician has friends in high places. His business interests with the Assad family were no secret. This gave him a sort of halo of invincibility that only added Soprano-style mystery to his soft-spoken style.

Yet to classify him as pro Syrian would be unfair. We shouldn’t forget that even Mr. Hariri was at one point aligned with the Syrians, because, let’s face it, they were the gate keepers.

A lot of Tripolitanians saw in Mr. Mikati a much better alternative than the vulgar Omar Karami, who was so upset at Mr. Mikati’s “Trespassing” into his “territory” that he actually named him: “wazir el zift”, translated “Minister of Asphalt” (lost in translation: it has a much nicer derogatory bang in Arabic).

Recently, he has been doing and saying all the right things: He was the first to suggest that the airport be named after the Late Hariri , and after being chosen as Prime minister, he stressed that the elections should be held on time and that for credibility, he won’t be a candidate. He even said that he will sack the security officials and that he is bent on letting the international investigation into Hariri’s murder take its full course.
Perhaps most significantly, he made the symbolic move of visiting Hariri’s grave right after being named prime minister.

Even in terms of style, he seems to have that quality we all liked in the late Hariri: He is never angry in public and never uses demagogy. He’s always calm, serene and he chooses his words carefully. A real manager.

Give this man a chance; he deserves it.

They have also started a series covering Lebanon election issues. Here are parts one and two.

In the last roundup I noted that a big controversy was going to surround the electoral proposals for district forming. From my understanding, the Syrian loyalist camp is looking to enlarge the voting districts, called a Mohafaza, in order to defeat pro-opposition candidates from smaller districts called Qazas. Also, currently, the Qazas are based on single-mandate voting, so whoever wins the largest number of votes, even out of ten candidates, would win the seat. This means that opposition candidates would have a great advantage this time around. Well, Lahoud is looking to change that. He has been trying to also make the electoral districts proportional, which would highly favor pro-Syrian loyalist candidates who would otherwise completely lose out in elections held under the current laws. Combine these two things, and potentially they could hold out.

Michael Totten notes that even though half of Lebanon’s population is in Beirut, a greater number of electoral districts lay outside its influence.

A Lebanese-American blogger based in New York City who calls herself Ms. Levantine identifies Lebanon’s principal internal problem precisely:

“Lebanon????????s tragedy is that instead of creating The Greater Beirut, we came up with The Greater Mount Lebanon…Lebanon????????s tragedy was that the city was never able to impose its political role, and that instead, the old rivalries of the mountain took over the life of the country. Those rivalries were not condusive to the creation of a modern state, and we ended up with a fragmented country where local chieftains tried to protect their power with the help of a wide array of foreign countries…we have to shift the balance of power from the countryside to the city.”

Even though roughly half of Lebanon’s people live in or around Beirut, most of the voting districts are out in the countryside. If your grandfather is from Shweir, you must go to Shweir and vote for a rural sectarian candidate. Your representative in parliament will not be, cannot be, an urban cosmopolitan even if you’re an urban cosmopolitan yourself.

One of the benefits of Lebanon’s miniscule size is that every last inch of it is close to the city. Anyone in the villages can easily visit Beirut. And anyone in Beirut can visit the villages.

Until the districting laws are changed, Beirut will not be able to impose its political role on the countryside. But people who live in the city can project their culture and their values into the villages. That’s exactly what the tent-city protesters are going to do every day for the next week.

That’s an interesting point. Perhaps, if the electoral laws are changed to create bigger districts that include more of the city, while preserving single-mandate election, then forming a more liberal Lebanon could be achieved. If not, in any case, it is impressive to see the great determination shown by the protestors to get the word out.

It is also encouraging, though, that the new PM has promised that elections will be held on the constitutional deadline. Making sure of this and that they are free, fair, and transparent will be the main victory in all of this.