Lebanon's parliament appoints army chief as president

2025-01-09 15:45:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Lebanon's parliament appoints army chief as president

Lebanon's army chief, Joseph Aoun

Lebanon's parliament on Thursday nominated the country's army chief, Joseph Aoun, as president. Lebanon had been without a president for two years due to political deadlock.

The vote came weeks after the start of a ceasefire that ended more than a year of war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and at a time when Lebanon's leaders are seeking international help to rebuild the country.

Aoun was seen as the preferred candidate of the United States and Saudi Arabia, whose support Lebanon will need to rebuild.

Thursday's session was the 13th attempt to elect a successor to Michel Aoun, whose term ends in October 2022.

Hezbollah initially backed another candidate, Suleiman Frangiegh, the leader of a small Christian party in northern Lebanon that has close ties to former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. However, on Wednesday Frangieh announced he was withdrawing from the race and endorsed Aoun, paving the way for the army chief to be elected president.

Hezbollah, which controls southern Lebanon, has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, while the European Union has blacklisted its armed wing but not its political party.

Randa Slim, a researcher at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said the weakening of Hezbollah politically and militarily in its war with Israel and the fall of its ally, Assad, in Syria, along with international pressure to appoint a president, have paved the way for Thursday's result.

The sectarian power-sharing system in Lebanon causes many deadlocks for political and procedural reasons.

The role of the president in Lebanon is limited due to the power-sharing system, according to which the president is always a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of Parliament a Shiite.

However, only the president has the power to appoint or dismiss the prime minister and the cabinet. The caretaker government that has led Lebanon for the past two years has had limited powers, as it was not appointed by a sitting president./REL