Army chief Joseph Aoun was elected president of Lebanon by parliament on Thursday, closing a period in which the country has struggled for 26 months without a president and limped along under a caretaker cabinet.
This was parliament’s 13th session and the first in 19 months dedicated to a presidential vote called by speaker Nabih Berri, who put his credibility on the line by insisting on a vote. Aoun was front-runner in a field of four serious contenders.
United Nations special co-ordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert called on Aoun to appoint a prime minister without delay. “The tasks facing the Lebanese state are too monumental to waste time,” she said. “The time has come for every decision-maker to place Lebanon’s interests above any personal or political considerations.”
The election was bitterly contested, with Aoun’s opponents claiming foreign interference as the United States, France and Saudi Arabia had openly campaigned for him, and Riyadh was urged to provide funds for economic renewal and reconstruction. Opponents also argued his candidacy was unconstitutional since two years had not passed since he held a senior position.
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Aoun won in the second round by securing 99 votes in the 128-member assembly, exceeding the two-thirds-majority, or 86 votes, needed to win. During the first round he took only 71 votes but the Shia duo Hizbullah and Amal – which had initially returned blanks – put him over the top in the second round by casting about 30 votes for him. This overcame the objection to his candidacy. A Shia duo source told Beirut al-Jadeed television: “We will vote for the army commander after an excellent meeting with him that discussed all political, security and reconstruction concerns.”
[ Lebanon ceasefire: Fog of war enables claim and counter-claim to retard progressOpens in new window ]
Lebanon’s political situation has changed since Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel. Israel assassinated Hizbullah’s charismatic leader Hassan Nasrallah and the movement’s military wing has been decimated by Israeli sabotage and strikes. Hizbullah’s allies in Iran’s axis of resistance have been depleted by Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and the overthrow of the Assad government in Syria.
Consequently, Hizbullah no longer commands its previous dominant political position on the Lebanese scene and is obliged to maintain influence by courting the public, which is eager to end the country’s political, economic and social crisis. Lebanon’s currency has lost 90 per cent of its value, and the poverty rate has reached 55 per cent, according to the UN.
Lebanon has had no president since October 2022 when Michel Aoun, no relation to Joseph Aoun, left office. As the president must choose a prime minister to form an empowered cabinet, the country has had a caretaker government, which cannot initiate the major reforms required to access billions of dollars raised in 2022 in international aid needed to recover from five years of economic crisis and to rebuild war damage.
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