Lebanon Elects New President

New Era 

Lebanon’s parliament elected the country’s 14th president, Army Chief Joseph Aoun on Thursday, filling the vacant seat for the first time in two years.

The presidency, reserved for a Maronite Christian in Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system, hasn’t been filled since Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022. The former president was supported by Hezbollah and has no relation to Joseph Aoun. Negotiations over his successor were unsuccessful, leading to tensions between the country’s pro-Western and pro-Iranian camps.

In 12 previous rounds of voting, parliament was unable to agree on a successor, leaving the Lebanese state crippled.

After two rounds of voting on Thursday, Aoun gathered the two-thirds majority needed to secure the presidency by winning 99 of the possible 128 parliament votes. In doing so, he secured support from a coalition of Lebanon’s diverse sectarian groups. Aoun himself is Maronite Christian, which is a prerequisite in Lebanon for the presidency and head of the armed forces. While the prime minister must be Sunni Muslim and speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim ensuring the biggest sectarian groups are represented.

Aoun’s election even amongst fellow Christians wasn’t without controversy. The Free Patriotic Movement opposed his candidacy while the Lebanese Forces party withheld an endorsement until the day before the election.

Some in parliament opposed letting Aoun bypass a constitutional restriction that forbade him from running for president while also serving as head of the military.

“Generally, there should be a president, but we did not want there to be a president who starts their term with a breach of the constitution,” said parliamentarian Oussama Saad.

In protest, several politicians cast blank ballots in Thursday’s vote or filled out ballots with comical candidates, including one vote for U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.

Hezbollah’s representative in parliament, Mohammed Raad, implied that the group’s legislators had withheld their votes from Aoun in the first round but voted for him in the second to show that Hezbollah – even in its diminished state – will not be sidelined politically.

“We postponed our vote because we wanted to send a message that just as we are protectors of Lebanon’s sovereignty, we are protectors of the national accord,” Raad said after the election.

Aoun has been working closely with a U.S.-led monitoring commission to enforce the November ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon. He has been praised by U.S. officials and was widely seen as the preferred candidate of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, whose assistance Lebanon will need as it seeks to rebuild.

Challenges

Lebanon is in its sixth year of an economic and financial crisis that has decimated the country’s currency and wiped out the savings of many Lebanese. The crisis was plagued by a devalued currency, hyperinflation and soaring poverty. Leaving many unable to afford basic necessities such as food, gas, electricity, and water. The World Bank has ranked Lebanon’s financial crisis “among the most severe crisis episodes globally since the mid-nineteenth century.”

In a speech to parliament, Aoun pledged to carry out reforms to the judicial system, fight corruption and deal with the banking crisis. Lebanese depositors still do not have full access to their dollar accounts with banks due to severe liquidity shortages that persist since 2019. “Under my leadership, banks will be held accountable and subject to the law,” he said.

With the backing of the United States and Saudi Arabia, Aoun could be successful in revamping the financial sector but only if he stays true to his promise of fighting corruption and mismanagement. A massive problem that the country must address.

The Beirut port explosion in August 2020, which killed more than 220 people and injured thousands of others, added to the despair citizens had already been feeling. This lead to massive protests against the government for negligence and corruption. Officials say the explosion was caused by 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored unsafely since 2013.

Aoun vowed to work to consolidate the state’s right to “monopolize the carrying of weapons.” Meaning only the Lebanese Army and not Hezbollah would be armed and responsible for protecting the country’s borders.

Aoun vowed in his acceptance speech, “It is time to invest in Lebanon through our foreign relations rather than betting on external powers to overpower one another.” He emphasized maintaining strong relations with Arab nations and adopting “positive neutrality” in regional conflicts.

“We will invest in the army to control and secure the borders in the south and finalize them in the east and north, combating terrorism, implementing international resolutions and preventing Israeli attacks on Lebanon,” Aoun said. Promising to control the country’s borders and “ensure the activation of the security services and to discuss a strategic defense policy that will enable the Lebanese state to remove the Israeli occupation from all Lebanese territories” in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli military has not yet withdrawn from dozens of villages. He vowed to reconstruct “what the Israeli army destroyed in the south, east and (Beirut’s southern) suburbs.”

The World Bank has put reconstruction costs at least $8 billion in order for the country to recover from the war between Israel and Hezbollah.