Diab new Lebanon PM

Crisis-hit Lebanon’s president said yesterday he would name academic and former minister Hassan Diab, as the country’s new prime minister, ending nearly two months of political wrangling. The little-known 60-year-old engineering professor at the American University of Beirut(AUB) replaces outgoing premier Saad Hariri amid nationwide anti-government protests and the worst economic crisis since Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.

“After binding parliamentary consultations... the president has summoned... Hassan Diab to appoint him to form a government,” the presidency said in a statement after the twice-delayed talks on Thursday. Aoun had launched the talks Thursday and met with all parliamentary blocs before naming the new premier.

Hariri pulled out of the race on Wednesday and his bloc did not nominate its own candidate for prime minister. A career academic, Diab held the education portfolio from 2011 to 2014 in a government formed after Hezbollah brought down a previous Hariri cabinet. Hariri resigned on October 29, nearly two weeks into a nationwide cross-sectarian protest movement demanding the wholesale removal of a political elite seen as corrupt and incompetent.

Lebanon has been ruled by the same political clans and families since the 1975-1990 civil war and protesters have pushed for a technocratic government. “I have strived to meet their demand for a government of experts, which I saw as the only option to address the serious social and economic crisis our country faces,” Hariri said in a statement.

Lebanese media named the new frontrunner as 60-year-old Hassan Diab, a vice president at AUB who held the education portfolio between 2011 and 2014.