The end of the Aoun era.. A historical review and scenarios for presidential vacancy in Lebanon

Beirut -

Since November 1, 2022, Michel Aoun will become the "former president of the Lebanese Republic", as he was a former army commander and former head of a military government, completing 6 years of an exceptional presidential term, and opening the door to a political and constitutional confrontation by signing a decree considering the caretaker government to have resigned. .

Aoun, 87, is the first president to leave Baabda Palace twice;

The first was under the bombardment of the Syrian army and coincided with the signing of the Taif Agreement document in 1989, when he was head of a transitional military government, which led to him being exiled to France for 15 years.

And once on October 30, 2022, at the end of his term, after his political dream, which he fought in fierce battles, to enter as President of the Republic, was fulfilled.

What has been called the "Aoun era", its repercussions extend to the vacancy stage - the presidential vacuum - under the weight of the parliamentary blocs' inability to elect a president with a two-thirds majority, and a political debate over the validity of a resigned government headed by Najib Mikati assuming the presidency in a vacancy, and the latter responded that he would continue to implement his constitutional powers.

Aoun's mandate was filled with strife between his supporters and opponents (Reuters)

dangerous precedent

Lebanon, which is awaiting the election of the 14th president after the end of Aoun's term, has not yet achieved the presidential elections on time, but has witnessed either an extension or a vacancy, but it is the first time that the vacancy has been entered by the president's issuance of the government's resignation decree.

Professor of Constitutional Law Wissam Al-Lahham says to Al-Jazeera Net that Aoun's issuance of the decree means that the government by virtue of its non-existence, explaining that there is no constitutional answer about this situation, which he describes as a dangerous precedent, suggesting that it is likely to enter the stage of political interpretations of the constitution, and Mikati continues to conduct business on the basis that there is no absolute vacuum. ruling, but he will face the dilemma of a number of ministers boycotting the government.

Article 62 of the Lebanese Constitution states that “when the presidency becomes vacant, the powers of the presidency are entrusted to the Council of Ministers as an agency.”

The constitution did not address the problem of the resigned government in a presidential vacuum.

Aoun era review

After the longest presidential vacancy that lasted for two and a half years, President Aoun stood on October 31, 2016 in Parliament, and took the presidential oath, crowning the fruit of the presidential settlement between the head of the Free Patriotic Movement (his political team) Gibran Bassil, the former prime minister, Saad Hariri, and the head of the Forces Party. Lebanese Samir Geagea, whose first godfather was Hezbollah.

And from his oath at the time: "The one who addresses you today is a president who came in a difficult time, and it is hoped a lot from him to overcome difficulties and not merely harmonize and adapt to them, and to secure the stability that the Lebanese long for so that their maximum dreams do not remain the travel bag."

But Aoun’s term was burdened by shocking events, and the “October 17 Movement” 2019 was a critical point, the beginning of whose effects were evident in the overthrow of the presidential settlement.

After that, the country entered a dramatic path, from an economic, living and financial collapse, to the explosion of the Port of Beirut in August 2020, and the subsequent political and security turmoil and regional relations.

His term witnessed the formation of only 4 governments - two headed by Saad Hariri, one headed by Hassan Diab and another headed by Mikati - in return for the long months Lebanon spent in caretaker governments.

A new parliament was also born, characterized by obstruction, according to experts, because it has neither a majority nor a clear minority capable of formulating the ruling, not to mention Hariri's exit from the scene despite what he represents as the most prominent Sunni player in political life.

Aoun concluded the last week of his term with a historic signing of the agreement demarcating the southern maritime borders with Israel with American mediation, inaugurating the "post-demarcation" era.

Analysts believe that Aoun's reign was the most stressful in Lebanon, and they divide it into before the October 17, 2019 movement and after (Lebanese press)

Al Jazeera Net raises questions about Aoun's mandate and its repercussions on the stage of the presidential vacuum and the scenarios that Lebanon will accept:

After 6 years, how can President Aoun's reign be evaluated?

Ali Fadlallah, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, divides the mandate of President Aoun into two parts: “Before the October 17 movement, there was a possibility of reform due to the presidential settlement whose role was to lead Lebanon to a solution, and this did not happen. After October 17, Lebanon witnessed complete paralysis, in exchange for a fierce attack on Aoun and his team.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera Net, Fadlallah considers that the size of the attack during Aoun's era is great, until it became the most pressured era.

He believes that there are two prominent events that are counted as positive aspects of the covenant:

First: The battle of "Dawn of the Outskirts" in 2017, which liberated a large area of ​​Lebanon infiltrated by "Takfiri groups", according to his description, a delayed operation that Aoun decided to make an alliance between the army and the resistance.

Second: Completion of the file demarcation of the southern maritime border.

Writer and researcher in political thought Wissam Saadeh believes that what is credited to Aoun's era played a positive role in ending Hariri's ordeal when he submitted his resignation from Riyadh in 2017. As for the demarcation of the border with Israel, "were it not for the interruption of an urgent international regional moment, the decree would not have been signed, neither Aoun's covenant nor Jealous".

Saadeh said that "every crisis that Lebanon faced during the years of the reign, Aoun and his team had a touch in it, and his responsibility is growing as he presented himself as a savior president."

For his part, Joseph Bahout, director of the Issam Fares Center for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, believes that reading Aoun’s era will be governed by the events of the last 3 years, because they overshadowed the entirety of 6 years.

With the exception of the presidential settlement, it can be said that a characteristic of the era is sharp political division, and history will record that it witnessed the great collapse and the end of a certain Lebanon.

Bahout says that Aoun was an opponent of all the powerful forces, except for his only ally, Hezbollah, and even he was an opponent of the allies of the so-called "March 8 forces", led by the Amal movement, "which made him isolated by a wide wall of opponents, and this is related to the history of his accumulated political hostilities, He was unable to build any sustainable understanding outside the cloak of Hezbollah.

Disagreements between President Michel Aoun (left) and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri hindered the formation of the government for a long time (Reuters)

What is the symbolism of Aoun's exit from the Republican Palace?

Wissam Saadeh states that the Lebanese constitution did not mention the term “the presidency of the republic,” but rather “the term of office,” but Aoun’s team invoked the word “covenant,” as a nostalgia for the presidency in the first republic, whose powers were reduced in the post-Taif republic.

Saadeh considers that Aoun's exit with a mass mobilization comes after he has established himself as the holder of a historic right to the presidency, and that he enjoys the support of the majority of Christians, and "the president who has a popular balance that he motivates at will, as a re-formation of Michel Aoun's image before the end of the civil war."

Bahout believes that Aoun's second exit, accompanied by his supporters in the Free Patriotic Movement, "to confirm that he was not a president like his predecessors without a broad popular ground. While he devoted the second part of his political life to returning to Baabda Palace in compensation for his military defeat in 1989, and to hide a defeat of another kind, Because he did not achieve the conditions for crowning the greatest reign in Lebanon, as he wished.

However, Ali Fadlallah considers that his exit is normal, and it is credited to him not to stick to staying or to demand an extension despite the presidential vacancy.

What are the constitutional and political problems at the end of the Aoun era?

Joseph Bahout considers that any constitutional vacuum is a problem in itself, which means that the constitutional institutions did not produce, on their own, a successor to the president to alternate power, in exchange for the ambiguity of the scene with the issuance of the decree of government resignation.

He says that the vacuum is being managed by the Lebanese heritage, but it is currently in the midst of collapse, and Aoun will return in the guise of a populist opposition leader, whose first task is to confront the resigned Mikati government.

Fadlallah believes that the major problem revolves around the great inconsistency in the reading of the constitution.

One party says that the supreme principle is not to allow an absolute power vacuum, and another considers that we are in a stage of conducting business in its narrow sense and cannot be expanded.

What has prevailed so far is that the ceilings are high in the confrontation, and it is likely that Mikati will continue to hold committee sessions instead of the government meeting, and it may fail due to the boycott of a number of ministers.

Here, "we will be faced with the sight of a very weak state facing a major stumbling block even in the conduct of routine work."

He said that the head of the resigned government may actually become the head of state, which reinforces the concerns of Aoun's team.

While "it reveals once again the crisis of explaining the constitution in exchange for the fear of putting the discussion of the system on the table, because it is a process of distributing political and sectarian spoils."

In parallel, Wissam Saadeh expresses security concerns in light of the struggle over the powers of the resigned Mikati government.

However, “comparing between the vacuum of 2014 and the current vacuum, it appears that in the past President Michel Suleiman was able to form a government that was Tammam Salam before leaving the palace. Now, the vacuum is more difficult and in a more dangerous context because it converges with an unprecedented collapse, especially in state institutions.”

Analysts believe that the political vacuum may pave the way for the rise of Army Commander Joseph Aoun as president (Anatolia)

What are the scenarios of the presidential vacancy stage?

Fadlallah says that the presidential file is dependent on external factors after the failure of the inside to accomplish it, and the most prominent influencers on it are Washington, France as a client, and Saudi Arabia.

It is excluded - with both Saadeh and Bahout - the chances of the natural candidates for the presidency, such as Gibran Bassil, Suleiman Franjieh and Samir Geagea, progressing.

Saadeh asks: How far has the system's problem reached as long as the results of democratic elections did not fulfill their function by directly electing a president?

He considered that the foreign parties' concern affects Lebanon, whether the next president will be loyal to the camp of Iran and its allies, or loyal to the West and its allies.

Among the scenarios put forward, according to Saadeh, is that this vacuum will pave the way for the election of Army Commander Joseph Aoun as president, and "even if Joseph Aoun is not elected, the military institution will have great international support to capture the stage of the great vacuum."

He said, "If the choice is to go to a controversial president and face a confrontation, the question will be who is in control of the country. If he is an intersection president, he may take the form of the army commander."

The most important thing, according to Joseph Bahout, is the duration of the void, which he expected to not exceed months, ruling out a dramatic scenario.

He says that the conditions required to elect a president are self-evident, which is that a balanced majority should vote for a personality with acceptable specifications from the largest possible segment of political forces and from abroad, but the identity of its owner has not yet matured.