Lebanon PM forms new cabinet after 10-month deadlock

Lebanon announced a new government on Saturday, breaking a 10-month political deadlock during which spillover violence from neighboring Syria's civil war worsened internal instability in a country long plagued by sectarian strife.

A caretaker government has run the country since former Prime Minister Najib Mikati resigned in March as parties aligned with the Shia Hezbollah movement and a Sunni-led rival bloc pursued a power struggle exacerbated by their support for opposing sides in Syria's almost three-year-old civil war.

"A government in the national interest was formed in a spirit of inclusivity," new Prime Minister Tammam Salam declared on Lebanese television.

Salam's 24-member national unity cabinet was announced at the presidential palace and includes members of the Western-backed March 14 movement as well as those of Hezbollah and its allies.

"This is a unity cabinet that represents at the present time the best formula for Lebanon with all the political, security, economic and social challenges it is facing," Salam told reporters shortly after his government was announced. "The national interest cabinet was formed with the spirit of gathering, not divisions, and meeting, not defiance."

Salam said the cabinet aims to "strengthen national security and stand against all kinds of terrorism." He said that the government will also tackle the lingering social reality of nearly a million Syrian refugees now in the country who fled from the conflict, a number representing almost a quarter of the country's total population.

However, the new cabinet is not expected to remain in office long, as a new government is to be formed after President Michel Suleiman's six-year term ends in May and a new head of state is elected.

Despite Saturday's development, Lebanon remains a tinder box for political violence, a country whose historic sectarian instability has only been exacerbated by the Syrian civil war that has spilled over the border and sharply divided the population, which supports rival Syrian groups.

Many Shia Muslims in Lebanon back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, while Sunnis support rebels trying to remove him from power. Clashes between pro- and anti-Assad groups have killed scores of Lebanese citizens over the past months. A wave of car bombs also claimed the lives of dozens.

Hezbollah openly sent fighters to Syria last year to fight along Assad's forces while some Lebanese have joined the rebels.

The March 14 movement had previously said it will not take part in any national unity government until Hezbollah’s armed wing withdraws its members fighting in Syria.

March 14's leader, former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, said last month that he is ready to share power with Hezbollah if it helps in ending the deadlock over the formation of the cabinet. Hezbollah has also abandoned an earlier demand that it be given, along with its allies, veto power in the new cabinet.

In April last year, the vast majority of legislators chose the British-educated Salam to form the cabinet. Salam is the son of the late former Prime Minister Saeb Salam, and leans politically toward the Western-backed anti-Hezbollah coalition.

Lebanon's politics are always fractious, in part because of the sectarian makeup of the country's government. According to Lebanon's power-sharing system, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shiite Muslim. Each faith makes up about a third of Lebanon's population.

Salam's cabinet included only one woman, Alice Shabtini, who was named Minister of Displaced People.

As in the previous government, Hezbollah holds two posts.

Al Jazeera and wire services