Lebanon’s parliament has elected a new head of the country’s armed forces, Joseph Aoun, to be its next president, after going more than two years without one.
According to the report, Aoun’s selection on Thursday was one important step toward addressing a decimated economy and financial system, and to marshal funds to repair costly destruction from a 14-month conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah that ended in November.
“It’s long overdue that we need to have a new president,” says Abdul Rahman Bizri, an independent member of parliament and a former mayor who says he voted for Aoun. “We have to start working again to rebuild the public sector and institutions and stability in the country to achieve what people are aspiring for.”
The new president’s to-do list is long.
Aoun vowed in his acceptance speech on Thursday to strengthen the small Middle Eastern country’s weakened state governing capabilities, reform the financial sector and defend Lebanon. It was unclear when Aoun would step down as the head of the military or if he would hold both positions at the same time.
“We will invest in the army to control and secure the borders in the south and demarcate them in the east and north, combating terrorism, implementing international resolutions and preventing Israeli attacks on Lebanon,” Aoun vowed in his acceptance speech. “It is time to invest in Lebanon through our foreign relations rather than betting on external powers to overpower one another.”
He did not name those powers but could have been referencing the rivalry between Iran on one side, which backs the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and the U.S. and Israel on the other.
Aoun, who is widely perceived in Lebanon as supported by Saudi Arabia and the U.S., also committed “to confirm the state’s right to have a monopoly on bearing arms.” That was likely an implicit reference to Hezbollah, Lebanon’s most powerful armed militia, which as part of a ceasefire deal with Israel must withdraw its fighters and disarm within Lebanon by late January. The ceasefire ended fighting that began in October 2023, when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which attacked southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7 of that year.
NPR/Taiwo Akinola
