Lebanon named its envoy to Germany, Mustapha Adib, as the new premier Monday to steer the country through a deep crisis after the Beirut explosion compounded a sharp economic downturn.
The presidency made the announcement in a televised statement as Adib arrived at the palace in Baabda near Beirut to meet President Michel Aoun and parliament speaker Nabih Berri.
Adib has been Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany since 2013 and his name only emerged on Sunday to replace Hassan Diab, whose government resigned in the aftermath of the deadly August 4 blast at Beirut port.
The 48-year-old was born in the northern city of Tripoli and is a Sunni Muslim, making him eligible to become prime minister under Lebanon’s sectarian-based power-sharing system.
His biography on the Berlin embassy website presents him as an academic who holds a PhD in political science.
It says he has conducted “research and expert work in the areas of both human and state security, parliamentary oversight of the security sector, decentralisation and local democracy, and electoral laws”.
– AFP
