The commander of the Lebanese army Joseph Aoun is the new president of Lebanon.
The 61-year-old becomes Lebanon’s 14th president, filling the more than two-year presidential vacuum left by his predecessor Michel Aoun – who is not related to the new president.
The appointment of Joseph Aoun overcame a major impasse; Lebanon’s parliament previously met 12 times to vote for a president, but failed to elect one.
Aoun’s support in parliament came from a wide range of political figures, and he ended up winning 99 votes out of 128 seats in parliament in the second round of voting.
But who is Joseph Aoun? And why did it take so long for the Lebanese parliament to agree that he was the right person to lead the country?
Military experience
Born in 1964 in Sin el-Fil, a northern suburb of Beirut, Aoun rose to fame during his time as commander of the Lebanese army, a position he assumed in 2017, which, like the president of the republic, must be held by a member of Aoun’s sect, Maronite Christianity.
Aoun’s official Lebanese army biography states that he entered the military academy in 1983, during the Lebanese civil war.
He steadily rose through the ranks, undergoing various training in Lebanon and abroad, including the US counter-terrorism program. He was also awarded the Lebanese War Medal three times, along with several other medals and honors.
In August 2017, shortly after taking command of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), Aoun used his counter-terrorism training to launch an operation targeting ISIL (ISIS) fighters who had spent years in the mountainous region between Syria and Lebanon – especially on the edges of Christian villages Ras Baalbek and Qaa in the northeastern Bekaa Valley.
The success of the operation strengthened Aoun’s position. And Aoun was also able to use his years at the top of the LAF to forge close ties with various regional and international actors, including the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar—a network that was particularly useful in rallying support around Aoun for the presidency.
Economic and political crises
Aoun’s tenure as commander of the Lebanese army coincided with a period of incredible hardship for the country.
A multi-year economic crisis has left millions of Lebanese in dire straits – many soldiers in the army have had to take other jobs to survive.
The economic crisis is seen as a symbol of a broader governance crisis in Lebanon. The sectarian political system has entrenched an aging political gerontocracy, associated with corruption and political mismanagement.
The horror of Explosion in Beirut in August 2020, in which more than 220 people died, contributed to the feeling that the country’s rulers had completely failed the Lebanese people.
And when President Michel Aoun left the presidency in October 2022, Lebanon’s parliament failed to agree on a successor, despite meeting repeatedly to vote. This left the Lebanese state virtually paralyzed, just as it needed to act to meet the country’s economic challenges.
The institution Aoun was in charge of, the Lebanese army, was also widely seen as weaker than the Shiite group Hezbollah, another factor undermining the effectiveness of the Lebanese state.
To make matters worse for the country, Israel’s war on Gaza quickly dragged on in Lebanon, as Hezbollah began exchanging fire with Israel on October 8, 2023, eventually culminating in two months of devastating Israeli bombardment and a ground invasion that killed more than 4,000 people, and culminated in a cease-fire agreement on November 27 last year.
Opportunity
But despite the death and destruction, the war settlement did pave the way for the final selection of a president, as international and domestic pressure mounted to find a solution and send a message that Lebanon would begin to rebuild.
Aoun, who only began to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate in 2023, was a man to be used.
He kept the Lebanese army out of the war with Israel, despite killing more than 40 Lebanese soldiers during that period, and is also seen as an important figure in securing Lebanon’s commitment to the ceasefire, which stipulates that Hezbollah must withdraw south of the Litani River and be replaced by the Lebanese army, as would ensure that Israel would withdraw beyond the border defined by the UN between Lebanon and Israel.
Namely, Israel welcomed Aoun’s appointment.
But outside of foreign and domestic support for Aoun, he is difficult to define politically, which may be one of the reasons for his success in being elected president.
Not much is known about his political views, and he has rarely given interviews – although in 2021 he criticized politicians over the financial crisis in Lebanon, saying soldiers were starving.
Aoun did not give a clear position on Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal, but in his inaugural speech he promised to “affirm the state’s right to monopolize the carrying of weapons.” It remains to be seen what steps he will take to enforce this, and it will be difficult to see how Hezbollah will agree to any demand to disarm.
The new president also promised to rebuild areas targeted by Israel, including the south and the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.
His emphasis on national unity comes in a rare moment of agreement; Aoun’s appointment ends a bitter period of parliamentary divisions.
But much more will be needed to prove to the Lebanese people that the country has now truly turned the corner and that its political leadership has the ability to actually make the lives of millions of Lebanese better – a role it has failed to do for many years.
