Najib Mikati

Mikati 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.[17] During negotiations to form a government, Mikati emerged as a consensus candidate.[18] Mikati acted as a caretaker premier.[19] 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 general elections of 2009, Mikati won again a seat from Tripoli, being a member of the centrist groups in the Lebanese parliament.[20]

Mikati's meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (2012) and John Kerry (2014).

On 24 January 2011, the March 8 alliance, specifically Hezbollah, Michel Aoun and Walid Jumblatt, nominated Mikati to become prime minister.[21] Mikati succeeded Saad Hariri, whose government was brought down by the resignation of ten of the alliance's ministers and one presidential appointee on 12 January 2011, resulting from the collapse of the Saudi-Syrian initiative to reach a compromise on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. On 25 January, 68 members of the parliament of Lebanon voted in favor of nominating Mikati for Prime Minister. President of Lebanon Michel Suleiman then invited Mikati to head a new Lebanese government. The process of government formation lasted for five months due to serious disagreements between leaders.[22] On 13 June 2011, Mikati became the Prime Minister of Lebanon for the second time.

On 13 June, Mikati announced the formation of the government and stated that it would begin by "liberating land that remains under the occupation of the Israeli enemy".[23][24] On 22 March 2013, Mikati resigned from office, due to "intensifying pressure between the pro-Assad and anti-Assad camps"[25] and the Lebanese president accepted his resignation on 23 March 2013.[26] On 6 April 2013, Tammam Salam was tasked to form a new government.[27]

Following the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab in August 2020, both Mustafa Adib and Saad Hariri failed to form a government. Mikati was designated to fill the role on 26 July 2021.[28] He received 72 votes out of 128 MPs.[29] Mikati declared that he wants a purely technocratic government, without representatives of political parties, in order to carry out the economic reforms expected by Lebanon's donors.[30] His appointment was received coldly by the population. As the country sinks into a serious economic, social and humanitarian crisis, he is seen as a representative of the traditional political class and economic elites. According to the daily L'Orient-Le Jour, “if being a billionaire has long been an asset in establishing someone on the Lebanese political scene, it is now perceived by part of the population as a symbol of the plundering of public resources by the political class.[31] On September 10, 2021, Mikati was able to form a government of 24 members after long negotiations with President Aoun, and the various political parties.[32] When he took office, Lebanon was in the grip of a very serious economic crisis: collapse of the national currency, galloping inflation (the cost of food had jumped by 700% in the previous two years), massive layoffs, a poverty rate of 78% according to the UN, frequent power cuts, fuel shortages, etc. He announced that he wanted to call on the solidarity of the Arab world to try to get the country out of the crisis it was going through and to negotiate with the IMF.[33]

In February 2022, Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, Lebanese senior Christian cleric and head of the Maronite Church, called on the Mikati government to "agree with the IMF on a plan that saves Lebanon from collapse".[34]

He was again named prime minister designate on 23 June 2022 with 54 votes against Nawaf Salam's 28 to form a new cabinet until the remainder of President Michel Aoun's term.[35] However, Mikati and Aoun failed to agree on a new government numerous times. President Michel Aoun signed the government's resignation decree,[36][37] a day before his six-year term officially ended, and Najib Mikati's government remained in office in a caretaker capacity, however Aoun's move was deemed as of no effect by the Lebanese Parliament in a session held on November 3 since the government was already considered resigned following parliamentary elections on May 15.[38]