| Najib Mikati نجيب ميقاتي |
|
|---|---|
| Prime Minister of Lebanon | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 13 June 2011 |
|
| President | Michel Suleiman |
| Preceded by | Saad Hariri |
| In office 15 April 2005 – 19 July 2005 |
|
| President | Émile Lahoud |
| Deputy | Elias Murr |
| Preceded by | Omar Karami |
| Succeeded by | Fouad Siniora |
| Member of Parliament for Tripoli |
|
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 20 April 2000 |
|
| Preceded by | Omar Karami |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 24 November 1955 Tripoli, Lebanon |
| Alma mater | American University of Beirut Harvard University European Institute for Business Administration |
| Religion | Sunni Islam |
Najib Azmi Mikati (Arabic: نجيب ميقاتي) (born 24 November 1955) is a Lebanese politician, billionaire and is the current Prime Minister of Lebanon since 13 June 2011. From April 2005 to July 2005 he was Prime Minister of Lebanon in a caretaker government. On January 25, 2011, Mikati was nominated to serve as Prime Minister by a majority of the votes in the parliamentary consultations following the 12 January fall of the Lebanese government of November 2009. The government was formed in June, after many delays.[1]
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Mikati graduated from the American University of Beirut in 1980 with a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree. He also attended a summer school program held at Harvard and the prestigious French business school INSEAD.
He co-founded the telecommunications company Investcom with his brother Taha in 1982. He sold the company in June 2006 to South Africa's MTN Group for $5.5 billion. In 2011, Forbes estimated his wealth at $2.8 billion, making him the 409th richest person in the world.[2]
After being appointed to the Cabinet as Minister of Public Works and Transport on 4 December 1998, he was elected to the National Assembly from his hometown of Tripoli in 2000, outpolling Omar Karami, who was elected from the same multimember constituency. As a parliamentarian, he retained his cabinet position and developed a reputation as a moderately pro-Syrian politician with a normal relationship with Syrian President Bashar Assad.
He was a perennial candidate for Lebanon's Prime Ministry since 2000, finally taking the office upon the resignation of Omar Karami on 13 April 2005.
He is the leader of the solidarity bloc which has had two seats in the Lebanese parliament since 2004.
He also created the centrist movement and ideology in Lebanon and the Arab world, for which he has held many international conferences in Lebanon.
In the negotiations to form a government, Mikati emerged as a consensus candidate.[3] Despite his closeness to Syria, his willingness to compromise and his promise to dismiss the chiefs of the security forces, whom many Lebanese suspected of involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on 14 February 2005, won him the support of the anti-Syrian opposition, against the strongly pro-Syrian Minister of Defence, Abdul Rahim Mourad. "We will be the symbol of moderation and national unity," Mikati declared after being sworn in at the Presidential palace in Baabda.
He was appointed Prime Minister by President Émile Lahoud on 15 April 2005, to succeed Omar Karami, who gave up after seven weeks of frustrated efforts to form a consensus government and resigned. He held office for three months, handing over on 19 July to Fouad Siniora.
Mikati's immediate priority was to prepare Lebanon for crucial parliamentary elections, which were scheduled to be held by 31 May 2005. Constitutionally, a government must be in place to call for an election, and opposition politicians had accused President Lahoud and former Prime Minister Karami of stalling the formation of a government in order to thwart the elections, which anti-Syrian parties believed they could win. Mikati's government succeeded in organizing the election, that saw the opposition, that was now known as the 14 March Movement, win 72 out of the 128 seats in the National Assembly.
On 24 January 2011, the March 8 alliance nominated Mikati to become prime minister and succeed Saad Hariri, whose government was brought down by the resignation of 10 of the alliance's ministers, and one presidential appointee, on 12 January 2011. It was a result of the collapse of the Saudi-Syrian initiative to reach a compromise on the issue of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
On 25 January 2011, the Parliament of Lebanon voted on his nomination with 68 MP's nominating Mikati for Prime Minister. President of Lebanon Michel Suleiman then nominated Mikati to head a new Lebanese government. On 13 June 2011, Mikati became the Prime Minister of Lebanon for the second time and is in the process of forming a new thirty member cabinet.
On 13 June 2011, Mikati announced the formation of the government and said that they would go to work "liberating land that remains under the occupation of the Israeli enemy".[4] For part of September 2011, Mikati was the President of the UN Security Council during the Council's 66th Session.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Saad Hariri |
Prime Minister of Lebanon 2011–present |
Incumbent |