At long last, the Lebanese parliament has filled the more than two-year vacancy in the country’s presidency by electing General Joseph Aoun, known for his professionalism, political centrism, and ability to communicate with all local, regional, and international stakeholders, as Lebanon’s new president.
However, Aoun is a compromise candidate, seen by most of the Lebanese political parties as a kind of last resort. The rival factions were bent on pushing candidates more aligned to their political outlooks and to ensure their loyalty in difficult times – most of the time in Lebanese politics.
Aoun, commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), turned in a cool-headed performance during the recent Israeli aggression against Lebanon, and his firm stance on the need to strengthen the capacities of the Lebanese army to enable it to perform its function of national defence, taken over by Hizbullah for many years, made his election a near certainty.
Aoun received a 71-vote majority in the first round of voting in the parliament on 9 January, but he was still 15 votes short of the two-thirds majority (86 out of 128 votes) needed to win. He was also still the commander of the LAF, an office that constitutionally prevents him from running for president until two years after retirement from it.
Lebanese MPs found a way around this impediment in 2008, when they elected the then-army commander Michel Suleiman, who had helped steer Lebanon through one of the most precarious moments for its civil peace at the time.
The solution was to elect him by a two-thirds majority, making his election an implicit constitutional amendment. This precedent established a convention in Lebanese politics – that whenever the civil peace is in serious jeopardy, an army commander stands the best chances of winning a national consensus, overcoming political and sectarian differences.
To close the gap in the first round of voting, Aoun needed support from the Hizbullah and Amal Movement blocs. This was forthcoming in the second round, in which he received 99 votes, comfortably surpassing the constitutional threshold and defeating ambitions among some in the Lebanese political class who had hoped to install a president subordinate to one of the leading factions, whether Hizbullah or one of its adversaries.
In his swearing in address before parliament, Aoun pledged to implement reforms that had long been on the public agenda but had earlier been blocked by the established political elites.
Aoun was LAF commander during the popular uprising known as the 17 October Revolution in 2019. His refusal to suppress the mass demonstrations by force was a main source of disagreement between him and then president Michel Aoun, which is why the latter’s party, the Free Patriotic Movement, strongly opposed his election, voting against him in both rounds.
For this reason, analysts have described Joseph Aoun as a president hailing from the “spirit of 17 October,” even though the MPs who elected him belong to the very establishment class that Lebanese youth rose up against in 2019.
Ultimately, international pressure exerted by Saudi Arabia, France, Qatar, and the US secured the votes needed to elect Aoun in the second round. It came with promises of generous aid and a lasting ceasefire leading to an end of the Israeli aggression against Lebanon.
While the election of a new president has brought the Lebanese some relief, since the prolonged vacancy had hindered the implementation of laws and policies and the proper functioning of government, the way forward will not be smooth.
The reform agenda Aoun pledged in his speech includes legislation to promote judicial independence, administrative decentralisation, and electoral development. He also pledged to secure the state’s monopoly on legitimate force, tighten border-control and anti-smuggling measures, combat corruption, reform the economy, safeguard depositors’ assets in the banks, and improve public administration.
On foreign policy, he vowed to pursue a course of “positive neutrality,” distancing Lebanon from adversarial axes and polarisations. Such an ambitious agenda cannot be implemented by the president alone, especially one who does not have a parliamentary bloc behind him, but rather was elected by a consensus that will not outlive this electoral process.
According to some reports, representatives from Hizbullah and Amal met with Aoun between the voting rounds to obtain a commitment that they would have a significant share in the forthcoming government. In exchange for their votes in the second round, they allegedly stipulated that Najib Mikati should be reappointed as prime minister and that they should be consulted on the appointment of a new LAF commander, a new director of the internal security forces, and a new governor of the Banque du Liban (the central bank).
They also insisted on certain ministerial portfolios for the Shia community, most notably the Ministry of Finance, and on the complete withdrawal of the Israeli Occupation Forces from Lebanese territory and reconstruction of the south.
While it is not known whether Aoun agreed to all of Hizbullah’s and Amal’s demands, the complete Israeli withdrawal and reconstruction of the south topped the list of his pledges in his address to parliament.
However, he was clear about not reproducing the political commandeering practices that Hizbullah and other factions had entrenched to control legislative processes and manipulate the political system to maintain their power and prevent reforms. He emphatically criticised the political practices that had caused the “crisis of governance and the crisis of rule” in Lebanon, vowing to end the deterioration of government performance and not to give certain positions to certain groups.
Promoting the rule of law, judicial independence, and the LAF’s monopoly on arms will put Aoun on a collision course with vested interests in Lebanon, whether Hizbullah and its allies or their political adversaries, however. He will therefore need to build a reformist parliamentary bloc to help him push through reforms over the opposition of the established political class.
He already appears to have passed his first test: the appointment of a new prime minister. While Hizbullah backed Mikati for this position, its adversaries aligned behind MP Fouad Makhzoumi. However, a significant group of MPs who entered parliament in the 2022 elections on a pro-reform ticket, succeeded in building a consensus behind Nawaf Salam, who now becomes the country’s new prime minister.
Salam is a judge who has served as president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) since 2024. He is neither affiliated with the 8 March Forces, which support Mikati, or the 14 March Forces, which support Makhzoumi. He has a pro-reform outlook like Aoun, and he enjoys widespread Arab and international respect because of his long career as an academic, diplomat and jurist.
He had previously indicated that he would accept the position if his choice were the product of a parliamentary consensus submitted to the president. By the end of the parliament’s session on Monday, Salam had won an absolute majority, with 85 nominations, against nine for Mikati and 34 blank votes.
MPs from the Lebanese Forces, the Free Patriotic Movement, the Progressive Socialist Party, the National Entente, Tachnag, the Renewal Bloc, Jamaa Islamiya, and the opposition all nominated Salam, while MPs from Hizbullah and Amal did not take part.
After the vote, the head of the office of the Lebanese president confirmed that Aoun had formally asked Salam to form a new government. Mikati released a statement saying he had contacted his successor, who was still in The Hague, to wish him luck in forming a government that would meet the objectives laid out by President Aoun and the aspirations of the Lebanese people.
The second challenge Aoun faces, and now Salam as well, will be building a balanced relationship with Syria, which had often earlier interfered in Lebanese affairs to promote the interests of the former Al-Assad regime and the Iranian axis.
With the fall of the Al-Assad regime in Syria and the consequent decline in the Iranian factor, the regional environment should be conducive to a bilateral relationship based on mutual respect and cooperation.
This was precisely the message that Mikati conveyed to Damascus during his visit to the Syrian capital the day after Aoun’s election. It was the first visit to Syria by a Lebanese prime minister since 2010, and the message was welcomed by Syrian Interim Government leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa.
At the same time, it was reported that the Interim Government’s security forces had thwarted an attempt by an Islamic State (IS) group cell from Lebanon to bomb the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine, a major Shia pilgrimage site near Damascus.
Tehran and its Lebanese allies are naturally sceptical about the new leadership in Syria, but Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been encouraging it to take steps to bring stability and an end to the Civil War in Syria. So far, Al-Sharaa seems intent on sending the right signals.
For the first time in decades, Lebanon can now ensure that its interests are high on the agenda of Lebanese-Syrian relations. Foremost among its concerns are border control and combating smuggling, which Al-Assad had fostered, building a Lebanese client network dependent on illicit arms and drug smuggling.
In addition to the envisioned bilateral cooperation in this field, the two sides will work together on the question of Lebanese missing persons in Al-Assad’s prisons and on the release or extradition of Syrian prisoners in Lebanon.
Lebanon also seeks the repatriation of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, with their long having been the subject of controversy and mutual recrimination between the Lebanese ruling factions.
However, conditions in Syria need to be conducive to the refugees’ safe and voluntary return, which is why Lebanon, along with many other countries, is keen to help with the reconstruction and restoration of stability in Syria.
Advancing a reform agenda in Lebanon to strengthen the Lebanese state will be an important aspect of that effort, this being the other side of the coin of the decline in Iranian influence, the main mechanism of which was to undermine the control of the Arab state.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 16 January, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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