Lebanon's Kataeb leader urges MPs to avoid 'deal with the devil' in search for president

Exclusive: Samy Gemayel says MPs must refrain from backing Hezbollah's candidate in the upcoming presidential vote

Lebanese MPs opposed to Hezbollah must avoid backing a presidential candidate supported by the Iran-backed armed group, the mistake they committed in 2016, the leader of one of the country's oldest political parties said.

Samy Gemayel, who heads the Christian-led Kataeb, said his party's new candidate Jihad Azour – a senior official with the International Monetary Fund – “has a deep knowledge of how to get countries in crisis like Lebanon out of the situation”.

“My message is that we should not repeat the same mistake of 2016,” Mr Gemayel told The National from his home in the suburbs of Beirut.

“Because in 2016, we had the same coalition. It was strong. Hezbollah couldn't get through – and [then] each one of them made a deal with the devil. And this deal led Lebanon to where it is today.

“So I hope that we learnt from our mistakes and that no one will do that again. Stay strong and keep resisting.”

An economic crisis that first became apparent in 2019 has plunged much of Lebanon into poverty and caused the local currency to plummet in value against the dollar by about 98 per cent.

The country has been without a president since October 2022 when the six-year term of Michel Aoun, who was backed by Hezbollah, ended.

After a two-and-a-half-year vacuum, Mr Aoun, a former army chief, finally entered the presidential palace in Baabda in 2016 after a series of deals with those from opposing camps who were also aligned with the Kataeb – something that the latter refused to do.

The Kataeb, which holds four seats in the current parliament, has yielded two presidents of Lebanon – Mr Gemayel's father and uncle. The latter, however, was assassinated before he could take office.

The party is known for being one of the most strident critics of Hezbollah, the only militia that kept its weapons after the 1975-1990 civil war. Opponents of the group accuse it of having undue influence over Lebanon.

Eleven presidential sessions have failed to come anywhere close to electing the next president in the deeply divided parliament, where no bloc holds a majority. A bloc – sometimes referred to as the opposition – of about a third of MPs, including the Kataeb's, had backed Michel Moawad.

But with his campaign stalling, Mr Moawad withdrew last week and with his supporters announced they would back Mr Azour.

It came after a rare agreement between rival Christian parties, including the Free Patriotic Movement – which Mr Aoun founded. Mr Gemayel has been credited as one of the major architects of that understanding between the FPM, the Lebanese Forces – parliament's largest party – the Kataeb and a host of independent MPs.

Traditionally the FPM, now led by Mr Aoun's son-in-law Gebran Bassil, has been allied with Hezbollah. But the strength of that relationship has waned, partly because Hezbollah and its Shiite ally the Amal Movement have backed Suleiman Frangieh in the presidential race, a move that the FPM was against.

Hezbollah, Amal, led by parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, and the FPM have cast blank ballots in the past 11 sessions. But with their support formalised for their respective candidates, that is expected to change when parliament reconvenes next Wednesday after a five-month hiatus.

On paper it would appear Mr Azour has more supporters than Mr Frangieh – but the IMF official does not at the moment have enough to reach the two-thirds majority needed in the first round.

Only an absolute majority is needed in the second round, but it is likely that the quorum would be lost if MPs were to leave the chamber should they suspect that the candidate they are opposing is likely to win.

“For us, we were searching for the best way to block the candidate of Hezbollah. [They] are trying to impose him. They have been blocking the elections for the past seven, eight months,” Mr Gemayel said.

“So the best way to counter [Hezbollah] is to find the candidate who can actually gather more votes than him. And the only candidate today who is able to gather this large coalition around him is Jihad Azour.

“So today Hezbollah is in a very bad position because they cannot get more votes for their candidate than us. So this was for us, the best way to block the candidate of Hezbollah,” he added.

Mr Gemayel described Mr Azour as a respectable, open minded and moderate person

“He knows very well the economic situation. He can assess it and find solutions for it. The best way to move forward is to have a candidate that can gather half the parliament with him – and he was the only one who could do it.”