BEIRUT—Lebanon's president appointed Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Wednesday to head a new cabinet that will govern until a parliamentary election in 2009.
Siniora's appointment follows a Qatari-mediated deal that ended 18 months of conflict between Lebanon's governing coalition and the opposition.
President Michel Suleiman asked Siniora to form the cabinet in which the Hezbollah-led opposition is guaranteed enough seats to give it effective veto power over government decisions.
"We did not nominate Prime Minister Siniora as a challenge, but for reconciliation and to turn the page," majority leader Saad al-Hariri, Lebanon's strongest Sunni politician, told journalists after informing Suleiman of his choice.
Lebanon's constitution requires the president, who was elected on Sunday by parliament, to appoint the candidate backed by the largest number of lawmakers. MPs informed Suleiman of their preferences on Wednesday.
The U.S.-backed parliamentary majority bloc had already declared its support for Siniora, determining the outcome in advance. The post must be filled by a Sunni according to Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system.
Reuters
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora was given the task on Wednesday of forming a national unity government in which the Hezbollah-led opposition will wield veto power.
The premiership is reserved for Sunni Muslims under Lebanon's power-sharing sectarian system.
Here are five facts about Siniora:
* Siniora, 65, was prime minister from July 2005 until May 25, 2008, when President Michel Suleiman was elected as head of state. He is a senior adviser to Saad al-Hariri, a political magnate and son of slain former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri.
* He was finance minister for most of the post 1975-1990 civil war period under Rafik al-Hariri and was chairman of Banque de la Mediterranee, one of Lebanon's largest banks and part of the Hariri conglomerate.
* Siniora's premiership was marked by an 18-month-old political crisis during which opposition ministers, led by pro-Syrian Hezbollah, resigned. They wanted veto power in a cabinet they thereafter considered illegitimate.
* Siniora, who famously shed tears during Israel's 34-day war with Hezbollah in 2006, oversaw some controversial decisions during his stint as prime minister. These included handing over the responsibility for the formation of a tribunal to try suspects in Hariri's assassination to the United Nations.
* His cabinet's decision to investigate Hezbollah's private telecommunication network and to fire the head of airport security, who was regarded as close to the guerrilla group, led to the worst civil strife since the 1975-90 civil war. The government later rescinded the decisions.
Siniora won the backing of 68 of parliament's 127 members.
Hezbollah, a Shi'ite group backed by Syria and Iran, did not put forward its own candidate for prime minister.
Siniora led the cabinet through the 18-month crisis—Lebanon's worst since the 1975-90 civil war.
Prime minister since July 2005, Siniora was frequently the target of opposition enmity during the political conflict which effectively paralysed his government. A former finance minister, he was depicted as a U.S. puppet by his opponents.
The opposition declared his cabinet illegitimate in November 2006 after all of its Shi'ite ministers quit in protest at the governing coalition's refusal to meet its demand for veto power.
"The candidate to head the national unity government should have characteristics that reflect this title," said Mohammed Raad, the head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc.
Under the Doha agreement which ended the crisis, the opposition is guaranteed 11 seats in a new cabinet of 30 -- more than the third it needs to block decisions.
The ruling coalition yielded to the opposition's demand after Hezbollah and its allies routed their rivals in a military campaign this month. The fighting killed 81.
The conflict was triggered by cabinet decisions to investigate Hezbollah's private telecommunications network and to fire a security official who was seen as close to the group.
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