"... when Nasrallah aired a video presentation in August 2010 with what he described as evidence Israel committed the crime – a theory rejected by March 14 – Mikati called the material 'very significant' and said 'PM Saad Hariri should take it into account'.”

Najib Mikati, appointed Lebanon’s Prime Minister on Tuesday, speaks during an interview with AFP. (AFP Photo/Anwar Amro)

Promising a hand “extended to all through dialogue” while speaking to reporters moments after becoming Lebanon’s new prime minister, Najib Mikati said he will begin consultations to form a government “particularly” focused on economic issues Thursday.

Many expect these consultations to drag on for weeks if not months, as former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and his allies in the March 14 coalition may boycott the government. On Monday, Hariri said his Future Movement would not participate in a cabinet “headed by a March 8 nominee.”

Mikati, who served for three months as Lebanon’s premier in 2005, announced Sunday evening that he was seeking the position, following a speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in which the latter said that preferred March 8 candidate at the time, former PM Omar Karami, declined being nominated. 

In a brief address after being appointed prime minister by President Michel Sleiman, Mikati portrayed himself as a middle-of-the-road politician, a stance he’s taken throughout his political career. A Sunni from Lebanon’s northern port city of Tripoli, Mikati said in a 2007 interview that he comes from a middle-class family, though he was worth $2.5 billion in March 2010, according to Forbes magazine.

Mikati, 55, earned business degrees from the American University of Beirut, and in the 1960s founded M1 Group with his brother Taha. The holding company first focused on construction before moving into telecommunications through a firm called Investcom. The company focused on building and buying mobile telecommunications networks, particularly in the developing world.

By 2006, when South Africa’s MTN bought and merged with Investcom for $5.5 billion, the Mikatis’ company had network licenses in 10 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East but including Cyprus and Afghanistan. Today the M1 Group is involved in a wide variety of businesses, including real estate, fashion and commercial jets. 

Mikati’s passion, however, has always been politics. In 2007, he told the Saudi magazine Arrajol that as a child, he’d memorized the names of all Lebanon’s parliamentarians. He did not actually enter politics, however, until after Lebanon’s 15-year civil war.

He jumped from the private sector to public service in 1998 when he was appointed Minister of Public Works and Transportation, a post he held as part of three consecutive governments until 2004. Mikati was also elected to parliament in 2000 and 2009.

The new MP enjoyed amicable relations with assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, though the two were not exactly friends, according to Hilal Khashan, a Political Science professor at AUB.

“They couldn’t be friends. Thriving business people, if they have political ambitions and are from the same sect, it’s a zero-sum game. Any gains have to be at the other’s expense,” he said. Indeed, in 2004 as a presidential election was on the horizon for Lebanon, Mikati said he would like to replace Hariri in any new government formed after the election.

That, however, never happened. Hariri did quit, but then-President Emile Lahoud’s mandate was extended under pressure from Syria, whose troops occupied many parts of Lebanon at the time. Mikati, who often mentions his close personal ties to Damascus, opposed the term extension.

He has also touted his good relationship with Saudi Arabia, and rumors on the street in Beirut since Sunday have it that Riyadh must have given him the green light to nominate himself for PM now.

Mikati last served as prime minister shortly after Rafik Hariri’s assassination. Large-scale street protests pushed then-PM Omar Karami to resign, and Mikati took charge in April 2005 with an almost-singular focus on preparing the country for parliamentary elections which began in late May of that year.

“He was running the show like you would run a private sector enterprise,” said Alain Tabourian, who was a minister in Mikati’s slimmed-down, 14-member technocrat government. “He used logic. Based on the case in question, he’d listen, and then we could argue back and forth until we found the best solution.”

During his time as PM, he also presented what he called the “Beirut Pact,” an economic plan written with input from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. His comment that he will focus on economic issues as PM suggest he might revive his plan. It is unclear, however, how Mikati will deal with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

The new PM did not mention the court following his appointment, but Nasrallah has made it clear that Hezbollah and its allies want a government that will annul agreements between Lebanon and the court, recall the Lebanese judges serving on it and cut Beirut’s funding of it. Washington, however, on Monday indicated any new government should continue to support the tribunal and not be too close to Hezbollah.

Mikati praised the court in April 2009, when the STL’s pre-trial judge ordered the release of four former Lebanese security officials held for years on suspicion of involvement in Hariri’s killing.

“[The release] proved that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon was not politicized, and that it aimed to reveal the truth concerning the case,” he said at the time, according to a statement on his website.

However, when Nasrallah aired a video presentation in August 2010 with what he described as evidence Israel committed the crime – a theory rejected by March 14 – Mikati called the material “very significant” and said “PM Saad Hariri should take it into account.”

Before deciding how his government will handle the STL, Mikati must first form it. Nasrallah rejected painting Mikati as a PM appointed by Hezbollah, but it is unclear if Hariri and his allies will join Mikati’s cabinet. A statement issued by March 14 Tuesday afternoon did not address their participation in consultations.

Khashan, the Political Science professor, said he thinks ties between Hariri and Mikati may have been irrevocably damaged.

“That’s it. You can say goodbye to” the relationship between Hariri and Mikati, he said.

This article has been corrected. An earlier version incorrectly stated that Mikati earned a degree from Harvard University. He in fact attended executive and external programs at the Harvard Business School and at Harvard’s J. F. Kennedy School of Government.