27 Facts About Charbel Nahas

Charbel Nahas is a Lebanese politician, economist and engineer who is the General Secretary of Citizens in a State, a political party that was established in 2016 and that has as its goal to create "a civil, democratic, fair and capable state".

Charbel Nahas is widely considered to be a Lebanese progressive whose priority has been to improve living conditions for the country's disenfranchised poor.

Charbel Nahas resigned on 22 February 2012, arguing that all of his colleagues in government were preventing any effective improvement in workers' rights.

Charbel Nahas was born in Beirut on 16 August 1954 into a Melkite Christian family.

Charbel Nahas graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris in 1976, and from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees, in Paris, in 1978.

Charbel Nahas received a PhD in social anthropology in 1980.

Charbel Nahas was a professor at the Lebanese University for 12 years, where he headed the Civil Engineering Department.

Charbel Nahas has served as Distinguished Practitioner of Public Policy-in Residence at the American University of Beirut.

Much of his work has centred around Lebanon's macroeconomic situation, in particular its sovereign debt, which Charbel Nahas has maintained is unsustainable.

Charbel Nahas is the author of A Socioeconomic Programme for Lebanon, which was published by the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies in March 2006.

Charbel Nahas is a leading social anthropologist and the author of many publications and studies on the Lebanese economy.

Charbel Nahas has acted as an expert for a number of Lebanese state institutions, as well as many international organisations, including the World Bank and the United Nations.

Charbel Nahas was in charge of the reconstruction of Beirut Central District from 1982 to 1986.

Charbel Nahas has contributed to development in areas including policy formation and public administration in Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, amongst others.

In November 2009, Charbel Nahas was appointed minister of telecommunications in the government headed by Saad Hariri.

Sources indicated that one of the factors that led the FPM to nominate Charbel Nahas was to participate in ongoing discussions in relation to the annual state budget and the national debt, which are priority issues for the FPM.

In November 2009, Charbel Nahas was appointed to the committee responsible for drafting the new government's policy statement.

Charbel Nahas proposed a number of changes to the draft budget law that would reduce the burdens on employment and on income, as well as increased investment in a modern public transport system in Lebanon.

Charbel Nahas has insisted on a number of methodological changes, including the elimination of all off-balance sheet expenses.

Charbel Nahas subsequently led efforts to investigate and dismantle an alleged Israeli espionage operation which had infiltrated the Lebanese telecommunications network.

In June 2011, Charbel Nahas was appointed Lebanese minister of labour in the second government headed by Najib Mikati.

Charbel Nahas argued that such measures are necessary to achieve greater social justice in Lebanon.

Charbel Nahas put together a reform package during the fall of 2011, which had as its objective to ensure periodic adjustment of wages, in accordance with the legislation that is already in force, to redistribute revenue from rentier to productive services, and to reinvigorate the role of the unions.

Charbel Nahas' proposal included creating the basis for universal health care in Lebanon.

In December 2011, Charbel Nahas put forth his proposal to the Council of Ministries again, but Mikati put forth a proposal of his own.

Charbel Nahas refused to sign the second decree on the basis that it was in violation of the law and amounted to theft of workers' pension rights.

In 2016, Charbel Nahas led the establishment of Citizens in a State, a new political party which has as its objective to establish a civil, non-sectarian state in Lebanon.