![Former Prime Minister Najib Mikati speaks to press after his meeting with Lebanon’s president Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace in Beirut, Lebanon on July 26, 2021 [Lebanese Presidency/Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/20210726_2_49346998_67353850.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati today said that he hoped to form a government in the “near future”, Reuters reports.
Mikati, a businessman, is the third person to be nominated since Hassan Diab’s government resigned after an explosion in Beirut’s port area on Aug. 4 last year that killed more than 200 people and flattened large areas of the city. He spoke to reporters after meeting President Michel Aoun.
Diab’s government has stayed on in a caretaker capacity since then, but Lebanon’s currency has collapsed, jobs have vanished and banks have frozen accounts in the country’s worst crisis since the 1975-90 civil war.
Mikati has held consultations with political parties that he said “unanimously” agreed on the need to put together a government quickly to rescue the crisis-hit country.
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