Nawaf Salam (R), President of the Court, gestures during a hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, on Feb. 21, 2024. (Credit: Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/AFP)
BEIRUT — Nawaf Salam, head judge at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, won an overwhelming majority of votes from MPs on Monday after a day of binding consultations led by the newly appointed President Joseph Aoun.
Salam gained the support of 84 out of 128 lawmakers in Parliament, with outgoing Prime Minister Najib Mikati securing only nine, and 35 ballots being cast as blank.
The support for Salam — over Mikati, who Hezbollah was hoping to reinstate — underlines a significant shift in the political power balance between Lebanon's sectarian factions, marked by Hezbollah's weakening, first through its war with Israel and then through the toppling of its ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria last month.
Over the weekend, Mikati was estimated to have 50 votes secured for the role of prime minister, which can only be held by a Sunni Muslim. He had the support from Hezbollah and Amal and the majority of Sunnis in the house, while, opposing this bloc, 31 MPs of the so-called restricted opposition (around the Lebanese Forces) were supporting one of their own: businessman and MP Fouad Makhzoumi.
Instead, in a turn of events, Salam's name emerged as a last minute candidate. On Sunday, he announced that he "was ready" to assume the function of prime minister, throwing what had appeared predictable into uncertainty.
Come Monday, Hezbollah and Amal MPs cast blank ballots, opting neither to support Salam nor put forward their own candidate. MPs from the Lebanese Forces, the Free Patriotic Movement, the Progressive Socialist Party, the National Accord, the Forces of Change, Tachnag, the Renewal Bloc, Jamaa Islamiya and the opposition nominated Salam.
With the conclusion of the consultations, President Aoun contacted Salam to formally ask him to form a government. Salam will reportedly leave The Hague, where he has been presiding over South Africa's charge of genocide against Israel, on Monday evening and arrive in Lebanon on Tuesday.
A meeting is scheduled for noon Tuesday at the Presidential Palace in Baabda between Aoun, Salam and Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, followed by another meeting solely between Aoun and Salam, during which they will discuss the formation of the new government.
Salam, seen as a reformist figure independent of the traditional political class, has been a candidate for the premiership twice already in recent years. He started out his career to research and teaching at the Sorbonne, then at Harvard and the American University of Beirut between the late 1970s and the early 2000s. From 2007 to 2017, Salam was Lebanon's ambassador to the United Nations. In 2018 he joined the ICJ and in February 2024, he became its president.