BEIRUT // A powerful Christian political party backed by Hizbollah has threatened to topple Lebanon’s shaky government, which they say is working to subjugate and marginalise Christians.
The Free Patriotic Movement’s threat and subsequent street protests have been seen as a move to boost the clout of the party’s leader, former army chief Michel Aoun, and potentially install him as president, a post that has been vacant for more than 14 months because of political disagreements.
Under an unwritten agreement dating to 1943, Lebanon’s presidency is reserved for Christians, the premiership for Sunnis and the seat of speaker of parliament for Shiites.
Lebanon’s latest political crisis erupted after Gen Aoun’s efforts to install his son-in-law as the next head of the army were rebuffed by other politicians earlier this year.
Free Patriotic Movement cabinet members began demanding that the issue of army leadership succession be prioritised ahead of all other government business. Increasingly agitated by the army leadership debate and the failure to select a new president, the party also started attacking Prime Minister Tammam Salam, accusing him of illegally taking on the responsibilities of the presidency, leaving Christians without a voice at the top levels of government.
“The purpose is really to marginalise Christian representation. We are convinced that is the case,” said Farid Al Khazen, a Free Patriotic Movement member of parliament and a professor at the American University of Beirut. “Nobody was willing to listen [to the party’s demands]. This is why we had to resort to the protests.”
The party quickly began snowballing the political spat into a larger cause, rallying supporters by claiming the government was oppressing and marginalising Christians in the country. Other populist agendas – such as the demand for a federal state that has fuelled passion among Lebanon’s Christians for decades – also became part of the Free Patriotic Movement’s discussion about of the state of Christians in the country. Its politicians also took to likening Mr Salam’s government to the Sunni extremist group ISIL, a provocation loaded with sectarianism.
The party threatened to take to the streets if the political demands it presented to the cabinet could not be resolved. Foreign minister Gebran Bassil, another of Mr Aoun’s sons-in law, warned that the Free Patriotic Movement could bring down the government with Hizbollah’s support. He also ominously promised that Lebanon would be forever changed once Gen Aoun’s partisans took to the streets.
On Thursday morning, Mr Bassil got into a shouting match with the prime minister at a cabinet meeting, accusing Mr Salam of violating Lebanon’s constitution.
Several hours later, several hundred Free Patriotic Movement protesters attempted to storm the Grand Serail, the prime minister’s headquarters in central Beirut. At points they battled with soldiers in the boutique-lined boulevards and were beaten back with fists, batons and riot shields. The soldiers were armed with automatic rifles and shotguns, but showed restraint and retreated at several points when their lines were breaking instead of firing in the air or using tear gas as typically happens.
Tensions calmed in the afternoon when Mr Bassil and his entourage pushed through to the front line and announced that negotiations with the cabinet would resume after Ramadan. He promised the protesters it was not the end of their battle.
Imad Salamey, a professor of political science at Beirut’s Lebanese American University, said the Free Patriotic Movement’s claims of Christian marginalisation were exaggerated and that the protests were probably for Gen Aoun’s personal gain.
“The truth of the matter is that playing the victim is part of Lebanese politics. Leaders typically manipulate fears in order to gain power,” he said. “Aoun wants to assert his dominant and leading role as the representative of the Christian community in Lebanon.”
Gen Aoun, 80, headed the Christian-heavy remnants of the army during the Lebanon’s civil war. At the tail end of the conflict, Gen Aoun racked up enemies among his coreligionists by using the army to subdue the most powerful Christian militias. As president and interim prime minister in 1989, he declared war on Syria, which was occupying parts of Lebanon. The following year, as Syrian forces stormed into Beirut, Gen Aoun fled to France, where he remained until they withdrew from Lebanon in 2005.
Despite his hatred of Syria, Gen Aoun entered into an alliance with Damascus-backed Hizbollah in 2006, though this has largely been seen as a marriage of convenience and opportunity, not shared ideology.
The powerful Shiite political and military organisation expressed its support for the protest movement, but so far has not deployed any of its own protesters or military might to back the cause. If Hizbollah decides to take a hands-on approach, either politically, on the streets or with its military, the government would probably collapse quickly. An intervention would also risk renewing Lebanon’s intermittent Sunni-Shiite conflict as Hizbollah’s enemies would not take kindly to such a coup.
Even without Hizbollah’s involvement, sustained protests by the Free Patriotic Movement could have consequences.
“Anyone can change the government in Lebanon, it’s not magic,” said Mr Salamey. “Any small group can cause tremendous stress and undermine the ability of the government to govern. The challenge [for the government] is to maintain everybody’s consensus. When this consensus is lost, the government can easily fall.”
foreign.desk@thenational.ae