After almost five months of protracted negotiations and political bickering, Lebanon's Hezballah-led March 8 alliance finally announced a new exclusively male, 30-minister government to be headed by Sunni billionaire Najib Mikati. Qifa Nabki has provided a list of the new cabinet ministers, as well as a breakdown per political and sect affiliation. The new Beirut government has, however, already run into obstacles, with two ministers reportedly resigning only hours after the formation of the cabinet. Hezballah and its predominantly Christian allies triggered a collapse of the previous unity government led by Saad Al-Hariri in January 2011. The Hezballah initiated move was motivated by a deep concern that Hezballah members were to be indicted by the United Nation's Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, Saad's father. The Syrian-backed March 8 alliance successfully enticed Druze leader Walid Jumblatt to renounce his allegiance to Hariri's March 14 bloc, providing Hezballah and its allies with the necessary numbers to form a majority government without its March 14 rivals. Despite gaining sufficient numbers to form cabinet on its own, the March 8 alliance struggled through five months of internal wrangling over who to allocate which cabinet seats and portfolios. Dismay was also expressed at the exclusion of women in the new government, with all cabinet posts awarded to men, and thus, attracting accusations of Lebanese politics as an exclusive gentleman's club: Mustapha at Beirut Spring blogged his disappointment at the exclusion of women from the new government: I can’t get over the fact that there’s not a single woman in our new government. Not one. Zip. Zero.. Zilch.. Nada.. None.. This can’t be right. In the past, we always had a few token female ministers as a symbolic gesture to the aspiration that women, in an ideal world, should be well represented. They humored the feminists as it were, but this time they don’t even pretend to care. Indeed, the announcement of a new government evoked little enthusiasm amongst Lebanese bloggers, most of whom have long been disenchanted with the country's inefficient political elite. Karl reMarks analysed the latest development, however, as a significant shift from consensual to majoritarian politics, with the new March 8 government abandoning the previous national unity model between all major parties in the country. Whether this provides Lebanon with greater governance remains to seen. Karl reMarks certainly is not optimistic about any short-term prospects, but the evolution from consensual to majoritarian politics is, nevertheless, a progressive move worth noting: I called this ‘the Cabinet of Curiosities’ because in many ways it breaks away with convention to overcome the paralysis in the Lebanese political system and the failure of March 8 to offer a solid programme of governance. The unequal number of Sunni and Shiite minsters is one of those ‘innovations’, dispensing with the token gesture of appointing women ministers is another. The one distinctive aspect about it is that it created a de facto parliamentary opposition for the first time in a long while in Lebanon. Said oppositions consists primarily of March 14, which will have to restructure itself to perform this role effectively. I have little faith that this will actually happen, this being the flipside of March 8’s inability to govern. Nevertheless, the success of both in playing those roles would represent a significant step forward for Lebanese politics which has been stuck for too long in the vicious cycle of consensual politics. It is equally impossible to discuss a new development in Lebanese politics without referring to the main patron, Syria. The latest turmoil in Syria has kept Lebanon's key political players on edge, and several commentators in the blogosphere offered their observations on Syria's role in the formation of the new Lebanese government, beginning with Karl reMarks: Sayke: This is a mostly a victory for bashar al-assad. at a time when his regime has been shown (again) to be just another brutal dictatorship, this demonstrates to other rulers that being a brutal dictator works. if you play regional spoiler, and hold the stability of neighbors and the larger region hostage, you will not be confronted by the international community. threatening to assassinate political opponents of your proxies in neighboring countries works. nobody will stop you. Danny: All along I have been harping away that it was not matter of negotiations…That Syria had the line up and called the shots.