In a landmark election, the Lebanese parliament elected Joseph Aoun on January 9, 2025, to be the country’s fourteenth president since its 1943 independence. Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah’s military might enabled Aoun’s election after more than two years of presidential vacuum.
President Michel Aoun (no relation) was solicitous of Hezbollah’s interests. After his term ended in September 2023, Hezbollah insisted on placing its own preferred candidate. When it failed to muster sufficient support in parliament, it turned to filibuster alternatives, vetoing the election of a candidate backed by the Christian-Sunni alliance.
Hezbollah’s defeat stunned Shi’ites. It exposed Hezbollah’s propaganda as empty. The sudden fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus cut Hezbollah off further from Iran’s military lifeline, transforming it from a military power into an ordinary political actor.
The Lebanese people [must] decide if they will reform their political system and compensate for years of progress lost to rampant corruption and petty elite interests.
It is now up to the Lebanese people to decide if they will reform their political system and compensate for years of progress lost to rampant corruption and petty elite interests. Aoun’s election differs from the 1982 election of Bashir Gemayel, also made possible by Israeli military action. A Syrian-backed assassin killed Gemayel before he could take office.
Then, regional dynamics worked against Lebanon as Syria and Iran accelerated meddling in the country’s internal affairs. This destructive process culminated decades later in the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who sought to develop Lebanon and free it from the Iran-Syria axis. Aoun’s election presents an opportunity for Lebanon to rise again, since Iran remains on the defensive while the post-Assad regime is focused on salvaging what remains of Syria.
Lebanon missed a previous chance when army commander Fouad Shihab succeeded to the presidency at the end of the 1958 civil war. Even though Lebanon enjoyed a respite from foreign intervention during Shihab’s six-year term, the confessional political elite blunted his efforts to transform the country. He left office disheartened. Lebanon soon became embroiled in the Arab-Israeli conflict as Shihab’s successors failed to prevent the surge of Palestinian guerrilla movements, protracted civil war, Syria and Iran’s grip on Lebanon, and Hezbollah’s heavy hand in domestic politics.
In his inauguration address, Aoun pledged that the state would monopolize arms, suggesting Hezbollah’s disarmament, and would exercise complete control over Palestinian refugee camps, which have laid outside its sovereignty since the 1969 Cairo Agreement. Aoun also expressed determination to combat corruption, introduce the rule of law, revamp the judiciary, and relaunch the economy.
Given his military credentials, full army support, and international backing, Aoun should succeed, at least in delivering security. However, modernizing the state machinery, ending sectarian tension, and clamping down on corruption lie outside his capabilities since, by necessity, they require instilling in society new values.
Lebanon’s centralized political system failed because the elite failed to put public interest above personal and sectarian interests.
Since independence, sectarian accommodation governed cabinet formation and allocation of portfolios to ensure the key sects’ cooperation to avoid an executive vacuum. Newly designated Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has opted to preserve the status quo. Even though he expressed his intention to form a technocratic government, he still agreed to allow sectarian politicians to choose their representatives. Salam’s approach to cabinet formation resembles the first cabinet after the 2019 uprising that toppled Saad Hariri. Hariri’s successor Hassan Diab formed a technocratic government that reflected the narrow and personal interests of Lebanon’s corrupt political class. Diab’s cabinet defaulted on Lebanon’s Eurobond debt, which caused the international monetary agencies to lose trust in Lebanon’s financial credibility.
There is no reason to doubt that Aoun and Salam sincerely hope to put Lebanon back on its feet after decades of political paralysis and economic decline. However, it is unlikely they will introduce the necessary structural political and administrative reforms. Lebanon’s centralized political system failed because the elite failed to put public interest above personal and sectarian interests. Lebanese increasingly demand that the country adopt a federal system whereby each sect can manage its internal affairs while the federal government handles foreign affairs, defense, and manages the currency. Perhaps this is not a bad idea. The Lebanese political system has malfunctioned since the French High Commissioner Henri Gouraud created Greater Lebanon in 1920. Perhaps more than a century later, it is time for Lebanon to adopt a new structural arrangement.
