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Lebanon's Hariri forms national unity government

Monday, November 09, 2009 BEIRUT: Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri formed a national unity government on Monday after more than four months of tough negotiations with his Hezbollah-led rivals, the cabinet secretary announced.The new 30-member cabinet was made public in a decree signed by Hariri and President Michel Sleiman.The line-up includes 15 ministers from Hariri's bloc, 10 from the opposition alliance which is supported by Syria and Iran, and five nominated by Sleiman.The share-out means that no party will have veto power in the new government and that Sleiman will play the role of arbiter.Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which fought a devastating 2006 war with Hezbollah, has two ministers in the new cabinet.The key interior and defence portfolios, nominated by the president, remained unchanged.Hariri, the son of murdered former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, was asked to form a cabinet after his US- and Saudi-backed alliance won a parliamentary election in June.But his efforts to form a new unity government with the opposition stumbled because of bickering between the two sides on the distribution of portfolios and the choice of ministers.The standoff between the rival camps softened last month amid a thaw in relations between their main regional sponsors Syria and Saudi Arabia.Syria was the power broker in its smaller neighbour for nearly 30 years until the 2005 murder of Rafiq Hariri, who was close to the Saudi monarchy.
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