Political deadlock in Lebanon is at its end, apparently. Parliament has elected the army commander Joseph Aoun as president. Lawmakers have designated Nawaf Salam, the now former head of the International Court of Justice, to be their prime minister.
The pair have promised reforms and a new era in Lebanon. They stand as polar opposites of their predecessors.
The new, relatively young Aoun comes after the old Michel Aoun, 91, vacated the presidency in 2022. (The two are not related.) Old Aoun infamously deserted his troops and reportedly fled the presidential palace in his pajamas during the closing chapters of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990. New Aoun is famous for leading from the front when the army, under his leadership, fought the Islamic State group on the Lebanese-Syrian border in 2017. Old Aoun was an artillery officer, trained to shoot at enemies from a distance. New Aoun headed an infantry brigade, tasked with engaging enemies on the front lines.
Salam is stepping down from one of the world’s highest courts to replace Najib Mikati, a billionaire who is accused of swindling a public housing bank out of money meant for cheap loans so people can buy their first homes. Mikati is also known for his commercial ties with the former regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and has interests in telecoms around the world. He and his brother are both billionaires and two of the country’s richest men. Their hometown, Tripoli, is Lebanon’s poorest city.
Lebanon is embarking on a new political era. The country is being marshaled into these unknown waters of reform by individuals seen as statesmen — for the first time in a long time.
Although these two figures, Aoun and Salam, existed outside Lebanon’s corrupt political system, they now stand at its helm. To get their government going, they need buy-in from the traditional elites, those same elites who are supposed to reform themselves out of a mess they created — the mess of a country they gorged on to enrich themselves.
Corruption in Lebanon does not stem from a single organ in government. It is a pervasive cancer that has spread into every cell of the bureaucracy and our society. The very basis of policy and decision-making in Lebanon’s executive branch has been geared toward enriching the elites and their cronies — to ensure that each head of sect gets their agreed-on slice of the pie.
The cancer’s champions, the entirety of Lebanon’s political elite (yes, all of them) are now expected to help these new doctors operate on the patient.
As much as I want to believe in Aoun and Salam, and I really do, I still resent their ascension.
Under Lebanon’s consociational power-sharing traditions, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of parliament a Shiite Muslim. Since 1992, the speaker post has been occupied by Nabih Berri.
Under the grand tradition of foreign intervention in Lebanon, the president is usually ordained with blessings from regional and global powers. That has almost always been the case throughout modern Lebanon’s 80-something-year history.
The Lebanese presidency mirrors regional dynamics. When there is regional consensus in the Middle East, the Lebanese find it in themselves to get together and elect a commander-in-chief. When the status quo changes, like when a revolution springs up next door in Syria, Lebanon’s presidency becomes vacant as the political elites gauge the winds of change and try to adjust their sails accordingly.
After Aleppo fell in 2016, the Syrian opposition was on the back foot. Old Aoun, Hezbollah’s earnest ally at the time, was elected president of Lebanon in 2016, reflecting the rearrangement of the region’s dynamics. Since Hezbollah, along with Assad, had won ground in Syria, it was natural that their gains be reflected in Lebanon. Old Aoun’s ascension was also blessed by the powers that be, including the United States.
When his tenure ended, the region was in flux and paralysis prevailed. Hezbollah has now been declawed, following its devastating war with Israel. The winds are now blowing west. That’s why we see the ambassadors of the U.S. and other powers sitting in parliament to oversee Lebanon’s presidential elections. They helped put the new Aoun there.
Does that happen anywhere else in the world? Where else do foreign ambassadors sit in on a national democratic process? To echo the independent lawmaker Halime El Kaakour: No one should be interfering in our internal affairs, even if they are saying all the right buzzwords, and Joseph Aoun has them all.
During his inauguration speech, he accurately diagnosed Lebanon’s problems: “a crisis of rule and rulers.” He said the state should have a monopoly on arms and that acts of war should be determined by the mechanisms of the Lebanese Constitution. Both are clear digs at Hezbollah, which, for the past 20 years, used its weapons to more or less do what it wanted with the country, constitution be damned.
But Aoun’s very ascension to the presidency is a violation of the constitution he promised to uphold: The law prohibits senior civil servants like himself from assuming the post during their tenure or within two years of their resignation. Although exceptions have been made in the past, this time it was supposed to be different. I hope it is different, and for me to actually believe it will be different, I would have hoped it would at least start off legally.
The idealist in me also takes issue with Aoun’s military identity. We have tried that before, and it obviously has not worked out for us. As army commander, he was the right man in the right place — keep him there. He has led the military body through turbulent times, including last year’s war with Israel and the 2019 economic collapse that decimated public sector salaries, and managed to keep it intact.
When the currency collapsed, starting in 2019, security personnel saw their salaries shrink to the equivalent of as little as $100 a month. The security establishment relaxed its rules and informally allowed service members to take on second jobs. Qatar, the U.S., the EU and the United Kingdom stepped up their aid and now provide the Lebanese army with everything it needs — from financing to food, weapons and training.
Aoun balanced all of this brilliantly. He also knows how to speak to Hezbollah and negotiate with it during sensitive times. So why ruin a good thing? Also, in this modern era, is a traditional military man really what we need? Why can’t we have ourselves an engineer for president? A doctor? A scientist? Why must they all be military men?
The realist in me realizes that the duo represents the best option available to us, even if it was shoved down our throats by the West. But when this ascension coincides with the apparent conclusion of a genocide next door in Gaza, with no justice for its victims, a crime aided and abetted by the West, it becomes a bit of a difficult pill to swallow. A certain resentment lingers in the aftertaste.
But also, like our neighbors in Syria, we feel that any new rulers are preferred to the old guard. The new emirs in Damascus also seem less interested in intervening in our internal affairs and more concerned with putting their own house in order. The Assad regime’s security apparatus is no longer a source of corruption and instability in Lebanon. Beirut no longer has to march to the tune of the Baath Party. That is a historic opportunity. That void strengthens the odds of institutional change. The reforming duo seems best placed to enact reform unfettered from the machinations of a despot next door.
Rather, my fears are homegrown. I see no path forward. I see a country promised funds to stay on life support, to keep it from falling apart. I see my people, especially the youth, who, bitter and disappointed, are fleeing the country. “Anywhere but here” seems to be the vibe. Friends who I thought would never leave, who always insisted they will never leave, are now lining up at embassy doors. I don’t see anyone changing their minds because Aoun and Salam were elected. I haven’t either.
Despite it all, or rather because of it, these newly ordained leaders are the only thing we have going for us in the face of the country’s corrupt sectarian regime. But I worry that Lebanon’s old, battle-hardened masters may prove too slick for them. Our political elite are well versed in theatrics, in the arts of subterfuge and positioning. There’s a reason they sit at the top of the food chain and, for the most part, have managed to keep themselves at the apex for decades. They engineered the system; they understand the inner workings of government and rule in Lebanon. Aoun and Salam may be the new referees, but they are working on hostile terrain against teams who know how to bend the rules.
I want to be hopeful and at least try to be optimistic. My therapist says there is no other way. Otherwise, depression and anxiety consume us.
Hope might come from the fact that Aoun and Salam are supported by Lebanon’s 2019 protest movement, are people seen by Lebanon’s liberal-minded as the right men for the job. But I am all out of hope to give to Lebanon. My comfort stems from my family and my friends, from the people I supported these past five difficult years, from the people who supported me.
We protested together, saw our economy collapse around us, isolated during the pandemic, almost died in the Beirut blast and, most recently, survived a war with Israel. Now, one by one, I watch my friends leave. Sometimes I even help them plan their escape. My hopes go with them.
“A paradise without people would never be stepped in,” the old Arabic saying goes.
Paradise is your people, and my people are leaving. So what’s the point in staying?
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