The recent decision of Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces party, to back his long-standing rival Michel Aoun for the presidency has caused disarray in Lebanon’s politics.
The reactions have ranged from ill-concealed hostility to silence. However, it is too soon to declare the idea of an Aoun presidency dead. We appear to be in a preliminary stage, that of negotiations as each side sees what’s in it for them. This may last several weeks.
At the centre of resolving the imbroglio lies Mr Aoun’s relationship with Hizbollah. The party has said that Mr Aoun is its presidential candidate. Cynics, including Mr Geagea, assume this is only a pretext to block an election and maintain a void. Now Mr Geagea has called Hizbollah’s bluff, and the party must either support Mr Aoun or risk losing its alliance with the significant share of the Maronite community he represents.
Yet the party’s reaction to the Geagea-Aoun reconciliation was not encouraging. After Mr Geagea’s announcement, a meeting of Hizbollah parliamentarians, at which an endorsement of Mr Aoun would have been natural, was cancelled. To some this confirmed that Hizbollah’s aim is to perpetuate a vacuum and reshape the political system to protect the party’s arsenal.
Hizbollah is facing a real dilemma. If it backs Mr Aoun, Hizbollah may have to deal with a man who seeks to reaffirm state authority at its expense, potentially leading to a clash between the two.
Anyway, it would have been overly optimistic for Mr Aoun to expect sudden approval of his candidacy. The norm is for politicians or parties to initially act coolly toward a serious candidate, increasing their leverage in the bargaining process for their votes (parliament elects presidents in Lebanon).
Mr Aoun himself is thought to not expect to be elected before March. If he is right and Hizbollah swings behind him, it will have to do so by pushing its Shia ally, parliament speaker Nabih Berri, to order his bloc to vote in Mr Aoun’s favour. Mr Berri’s votes and those of Hizbollah and their allies, along with those of the Aounist and Lebanese Forces blocs, would mean victory.
However, if the party fails to encourage Mr Berri to vote for Mr Aoun, the Aounists will interpret this as a sign that the party does not want a president to be elected, and lied about its intentions. But assuming Hizbollah goes along with Mr Aoun, what can he expect in discussions with political forces in the country? What are some of the demands they are likely to make of him?
Hizbollah will be the major obstacle, having undermined the authority of the last president, Michel Suleiman. A credible state threatens its interests. At the very least Hizbollah will want to extract a commitment from Mr Aoun to defend the resistance and legitimise its autonomous military role.
Hizbollah will also probably want Mr Aoun’s pledge to bar Saad Hariri from returning as prime minister. This will not be easy, because doing so would deny Mr Aoun vital validation from the Sunni community, through Mr Hariri’s Future bloc. Yet a compromise is not impossible if one of Mr Hariri’s colleagues is accepted by Hizbollah to lead a government.
Mr Berri, in turn, will want assurances that he will remain speaker of parliament after the next elections. He will also want to ensure that one or more of his own Christian candidates can win in the Jezzine constituency in the south, which Mr Aoun swept in 2009. This is part of the speaker’s effort to portray himself as a national, not merely a Shia, leader.
Mr Hariri will also have conditions for Mr Aoun, not least his backing of an election law that would guarantee Mr Hariri regains a large bloc in parliament. The former prime minister may also insist that he alone has the standing to head a government – his ticket back to political relevance after years in effective exile. However, such a demand would squeeze Mr Aoun, forcing him to choose between Mr Hariri and Hizbollah.
Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader, with a sizeable bloc of his own, would doubtless demand several things from Mr Aoun. Among these is a favourable election law, similar to Mr Hariri, but also a guarantee that he can name the Druse candidate in the Baabda constituency, as well as certain services-orientated ministerial portfolios to enhance his powers of patronage.
These are just some of the demands Mr Aoun may hear before he can be elected. How he will manoeuvre remains unclear. But he could find that his relationship with Hizbollah is the sword ultimately cutting the myriad Gordian knots that will appear.
Michael Young is opinion editor of The Daily Star in Beirut
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