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00:00This is Apropos.
00:03Well, his appointment ends a power vacuum that lasted for more than two years.
00:07Lawmakers in Lebanon have voted to elect the country's army chief as president,
00:12widely seen as the preferred choice of military backer, the United States,
00:16and regional heavyweight, Saudi Arabia.
00:18Joseph Owen now faces the daunting tasks of overseeing a fragile ceasefire
00:23and naming a prime minister capable of implementing the reforms
00:27demanded by international creditors.
00:29Solange Mouchan has more.
00:32Swathed in army fatigues, Joseph Owen was, for seven years,
00:37the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces.
00:40He's now the nation's president.
00:42After failing to win the necessary 86 votes in a first round,
00:46he passed that threshold in a second vote,
00:49finally filling a power vacuum that had been in place for over two years.
00:54Joseph Owen.
00:57Joseph Owen.
00:59He received 99 votes.
01:02Of late, the 60-year-old had become the face of consensus in Lebanon.
01:06He managed to not only gain the support of nearly all of the Sunni MPs,
01:10but enough of Hezbollah and Shiite lawmakers as well,
01:13after the Hezbollah-backed candidate withdrew and backed him.
01:17Born in 1964 in the Sin El Fil district in eastern Beirut,
01:21he studied political science and international affairs
01:23before joining the army as a cadet in 1983.
01:27Equally at ease in French and in English,
01:29the father of two comes from the Maronite Christian community.
01:32In Lebanon, the role of president is reserved for a Christian
01:35as part of its power-sharing structure.
01:38At the helm of the Lebanese army since 2017,
01:41Aoun, who shares the same last name as Lebanon's last president,
01:44Michel Aoun, but is of no relation,
01:47is said to have the support of international players,
01:50like the United States and Saudi Arabia.
01:52He played a significant role in the peace deal
01:54brokered by Paris and Washington between Israel and Hezbollah.
01:58And since then, international pressure had been mounting
02:00to end the political stalemate in Lebanon.
02:05To discuss, we're joined now by Ayman Manad,
02:08Executive Director of the Beirut-based NGO Samir Kassir Foundation.
02:12Thank you so much for being with us on the programme this evening.
02:16Lebanon hasn't had a president since 2022.
02:19Why exactly has it taken so long to get to this point
02:21and why is this breakthrough coming now?
02:25Thank you. Good evening.
02:26As you saw in the report,
02:28it's the Parliament of Lebanon that elects a president.
02:31And there are very complex rules related to quorum,
02:35related to the number of MPs who first need to be present in the room
02:39and the number of MPs who need to vote for a certain candidate,
02:43for that candidate to win.
02:45Over the last two and a half years,
02:47the lawmakers failed to reach a consensus around a name.
02:51And therefore, after every one of the 13 previous sessions,
02:55lawmakers affiliated with Hezbollah and their allies
02:58physically leave the Parliament room
03:01and therefore the quorum is lost
03:04and the voting rounds cannot continue.
03:07And this was Hezbollah's way of blackmailing everyone in Lebanon
03:11by saying that either you vote for the candidate backed by Hezbollah
03:15or you will have no president.
03:17What has changed is the war that Lebanon has gone through
03:20and the military defeat of Hezbollah,
03:22which has significantly weakened its ability to impose anything,
03:26neither on the international community
03:28nor on the other Lebanese political parties.
03:30And speaking of that,
03:31Owen earned widespread respect for keeping the Lebanese military
03:35out of that war with Israel.
03:38Who exactly is he?
03:40What was his track record as head of the army
03:43and how much support does he have in Lebanon?
03:47In a way, he led the army in a fashion
03:50that resembles the French expression,
03:52la grande muette, the great silent institution.
03:56He was very far from giving media statements.
04:00He was not necessarily someone
04:02that the Lebanese people heard from very often,
04:05but they heard about him very often.
04:07And he was widely seen as an honest leader
04:12in a country where corruption is widespread.
04:16So this was a stark difference between him
04:18and many other potential candidates for the presidency.
04:22At the same time, the Lebanese army, as an institution,
04:25enjoys levels of respect and levels of support
04:28among the population that are higher than any other institution
04:32because specifically it is perceived as a non-corrupt
04:35or at least much less corrupt organization than the others.
04:40It is also an institution whose members
04:43come from various Lebanese sects
04:45and at the same time has managed to remain relatively immune
04:50to the political infighting that is very common in Lebanon,
04:54in other Lebanese political institutions,
04:56in the parliament, in government institutions,
04:58and even in local government, in municipalities.
05:01So this gave him enough respect in the general population.
05:05In addition to the very strong relationship
05:08he has built with other international partners of Lebanon,
05:11the United States definitely, but also France,
05:14Great Britain, and Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
05:18and so many other players in the region
05:20who found him as a consensus candidate
05:24who can garner the largest amount of support.
05:26And is he well-placed then to maintain
05:29the fragile ceasefire in place?
05:31What role did he play in putting that together?
05:36I mean, the details of the negotiations
05:38that led to the ceasefire remain very opaque
05:41for the Lebanese people in general.
05:43It happened mainly behind closed doors through envoys.
05:46But the Lebanese army was seen as the credible actor
05:50who can be present in South Lebanon,
05:54deploy in South Lebanon,
05:55in cooperation with the UN peacekeeping forces,
05:58the UNIFIL, in cooperation with the French and American army
06:02that are seen as the guarantors for the peace,
06:05or not the peace, sorry, for the ceasefire agreement.
06:08And the fact that there is international trust
06:11in the ability of the army to fill the void
06:14and to be present and to make sure
06:16that the fighting doesn't continue
06:18and that no military activities takes place
06:22in Southern Lebanon was one of the most essential role
06:26Joseph Haun has played recently.
06:27And this is probably what expedited
06:30his accession to the presidency.
06:34Because if there is one major task for the president,
06:38at least in the next few months,
06:40it's his ability to guarantee the full implementation
06:44of the ceasefire agreement.
06:45And consequently, the full implementation
06:48of UN Security Council Resolution 1701,
06:51which is seen as the gateway for Lebanon
06:55to regain some form of security stability,
06:58some form of sovereignty that are preconditions
07:02for any international aid to Lebanon,
07:04a country that is going through
07:06one of the worst economic crises
07:07that needs heavy investment in reconstruction.
07:10This money will not come if the leadership of the country
07:13is seen as corrupt or is seen as beholden
07:17to the interests of the political parties,
07:19those very political parties that brought Lebanon
07:21to the brink of complete collapse.
07:23And Iman, some observers have said that the voting process,
07:26it demonstrates that despite its weakened military capacity,
07:31Hezbollah remains a key political force in Lebanon.
07:34Would you agree?
07:35Yes, Hezbollah is a key political force.
07:38First of all, because of the very nature
07:40of the Lebanese political system
07:42that is based on power sharing
07:44and consociational power sharing among different sects.
07:48And Hezbollah enjoys significant
07:50and still enjoys significant support
07:52within the Shia community.
07:53But let's remember what used to happen
07:55in every single election, at least since 1995.
08:01If a candidate doesn't have the full support
08:04of Hezbollah, they wouldn't be even considered
08:07for the position.
08:08A couple of, a few months ago,
08:11former leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah,
08:13told the Lebanese people,
08:15accept now the candidate we were backing
08:18or we are backing, that Hezbollah was backing at the time,
08:21former lawmaker, Suleiman Franchieh,
08:23a very close ally of Bashar al-Assad,
08:25or you will even regret this name in the future.
08:29What an irony.
08:30Today, Hezbollah is no longer in the military capacity
08:34it used to enjoy.
08:35Bashar al-Assad's regime has collapsed.
08:37And even though in the first round of voting,
08:41Hezbollah and their allies, the Amal Movement,
08:42did not vote for Joseph Aoun,
08:44they only gave themselves a kind of cosmetic,
08:48face-saving approach by delaying the second round
08:52of voting by two hours,
08:53just to pretend they have some negotiations
08:56and to tell their constituency
08:58that they negotiated some kind of deal
09:00that would make the election of Joseph Aoun acceptable.
09:03It is almost pathetic, but what's truly pathetic
09:06is all that time that Lebanon lost without a president.
09:10The name of Joseph Aoun was floated
09:12not a couple of months ago.
09:14It was one of the front runners
09:15since the very beginning of the presidential void,
09:18since the end of the term in office
09:20of former president Michel Aoun.
09:22Why did we lose all that time
09:24if at the time we knew that he was the preferred candidate
09:28or the candidate who enjoyed the widest support?
09:31Why did we have to lose so much time
09:33with a caretaker cabinet
09:35that could not implement any reform,
09:37with a leadership in Lebanon
09:39that didn't enjoy any kind of trust,
09:41neither among the population
09:42nor among the international partners?
09:44Why did we have to go through a war
09:46that destroyed even further Lebanon's infrastructure,
09:50all of this to reach a conclusion
09:53that could have been reached in 2022
09:56and that would have shielded Lebanon
09:58against so much destruction
10:00and further economic collapse?
10:02And would you have confidence then
10:03that he will succeed in putting together a cabinet,
10:06in implementing those long delayed reforms
10:09that you mentioned
10:09and in securing much needed international financial support
10:13for Lebanon?
10:15In Lebanon, constitutionally speaking,
10:18the president doesn't enjoy a lot of powers.
10:22However, the president,
10:23especially in the first weeks after his election,
10:26enjoys a lot of moral leadership and moral power.
10:29And it is the members of parliament
10:33who will have to share the name
10:36of their preferred prime minister with the president.
10:39So this is actually a test
10:42for whether or not the political forces in Lebanon
10:45will be playing a positive role or not.
10:48If in the coming days,
10:50a prime minister who is also immune from corruption,
10:55who hasn't meddled in the horrible governance
11:00that Lebanon has gone through over the last decades,
11:02is named,
11:03if that prime minister alongside the president
11:05form a cabinet swiftly,
11:07rather than having to wait for many months
11:10in the same fashion that we had to go through
11:13during the previous cabinet formation.
11:15So this would be a signal
11:17that there is enough pressure
11:19on the Lebanese political forces
11:21to go through the reform process.
11:23But if we don't have a prime minister
11:26that is as trustworthy as the president,
11:28and if the formation of the cabinet takes ages,
11:31it means that the same political forces
11:33have done what they've always done.
11:35Basically, pretend that they are open to reform
11:39and open to unlock the political deadlock
11:42in order to look good
11:43in front of the international community.
11:45And then going back to what they do best,
11:47stalling any ability for the Lebanese people
11:51to actually dream of better governance,
11:54of less corruption,
11:55of better services and a better future.
11:57Today, it's really critical
11:59because we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people
12:02who have lost their homes,
12:03who cannot go back to their homes.
12:05We're talking about a country
12:06whose infrastructure is completely inexistent
12:10and a financial system,
12:13a banking system that has completely collapsed.
12:16I mean, they're all bankrupt.
12:18So unless there is a serious political will
12:21to make sure that every point
12:23that the president spoke about in his inaugural speech
12:28is implemented,
12:28then that same political class
12:30will be responsible for further pushing Lebanon
12:33into a situation that will destroy any prospect of hope.
12:38Ayman, we'll have to leave it there for now.
12:39Thank you so much for joining us.
12:40That's Ayman Manna,
12:41Executive Director of the Samir Kassir Foundation.
12:45Well, that's it from us for now.