Politics Lebanon's parliament elects army chief as president
The Lebanese parliament has elected Chief of General Staff Joseph Aoun as the country's new president. Aoun received 99 votes in a second vote and thus achieved the required majority.
09.01.2025, 14:17
09.01.2025, 14:18
SDA
As head of the army, Aoun is currently also responsible for overseeing the ceasefire agreed in November between the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia and Israel. Observers see his election as an opportunity for a new political start in the country to end a political power vacuum that has lasted for more than two years.
The war between Hezbollah and Israel last year had recently plunged Lebanon further into crisis. The agreement on Aoun also paves the way for international aid for reconstruction. The USA, Saudi Arabia and France had repeatedly made this a condition.
An initial vote in the morning had not yet produced a result. Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement did not vote for Aoun in the first round of voting. After a break for consultation, they gave their votes to the army chief in the second round.
A dozen attempts failed
It was the 13th attempt by parliament to elect a president. The small Mediterranean country has been without a head of state for more than two years after Michel Aoun - no relation to army chief Aoun - left office as planned at the end of October 2022. Since then, the country of around six million inhabitants has been led by Prime Minister Nadschib Mikati on a caretaker basis. The current government is only able to act to a limited extent. The election of a president has repeatedly failed due to power struggles within the political elite.
Until recently, it was not clear whether the political blocs would agree on a candidate. The agreement on Joseph Aoun is now an attempt to unite everyone under the army, a government representative told the German Press Agency.
Joseph Aoun, who turns 61 on Friday, comes from a family of Maronite Christians from a suburb east of Beirut. During the Israeli occupation of Lebanon in the 1980s, he began a career at the military academy. He later became a general and was appointed commander of the armed forces in 2017. He studied political science and international relations, among other subjects, but has never held a political office. Aoun is married and has two children.
Declining influence of Hezbollah
Lebanon is strongly divided along religious lines and power has been divided according to a proportional representation system for decades. This means that the president is always a Christian, the head of government a Sunni and the speaker of parliament a Shiite. Hezbollah, which is allied with Iran, has also played a particularly influential role to date. It had supported its preferred candidate Suleiman Frangieh until the very end. Frangieh announced on Wednesday evening that he would withdraw his candidacy.
The surprising agreement on Aoun is a sign that Hezbollah's political influence in the country is declining. After the war with Israel, in which its leader Hassan Nasrallah, among others, was killed, and the upheaval in Syria, Hezbollah has been severely weakened. It has repeatedly blocked candidates for the office of president and head of government, giving the impression that it can dictate the election of the two most important offices in the country.
