ASIA/LEBANON - General Aoun elected President. Father Zgheib: "positive neutrality" is now the key formula

Beirut (Agenzia Fides) - General Joseph Aoun, commander of the Lebanese army since 2017, has been elected President of the Republic, a position that had been vacant for more than two years. He succeeds Michel Aoun, who also has a past as a general during the years of the Lebanese civil war.
Joseph Aoun is the fourth General to occupy the post of Head of the Nation since 1990, after the end of the civil war.
The candidacy of Joseph Aoun - geopolitical analysts agree - has been supported at the international level by the United States and Saudi Arabia. Before the vote, the US envoy to Lebanon, Amos Hochstein, and the Saudi envoy, Yazid bin Mohammed bin Fahd Al-Farhan, had arrived in Beirut to meet with Lebanese political leaders.

In recent weeks, Lebanese analysts and commentators have continued to consider the World Bank senior executive Jihad Azour, who has good connections with international financial networks, as the only potential alternative to General Aoun.
The Lebanese institutional order provides that the office of President of the Republic is reserved for a Christian belonging to the Maronite Church.
The new President was elected on Thursday, January 9, by the deputies of the Beirut Parliament during a second session, with a majority of 99 votes out of 128. For his election, while a simple majority of 65 votes was sufficient, the support of the deputies of the Shiite political parties Hezbollah and Amal, who had cast at least 30 blank ballots during the first vote, was also significant. Support for the new President came above all from the Lebanese Forces of Samir Geagea, while he was not supported by the Free Patriotic Movement, the other Christian party founded by Michel Aoun, which had been part of the government majority with Hezbollah in recent years.
Joseph Aoun has enjoyed popular approval since the protests that began in October 2019 and targeted the entire Lebanese political nomenclature, in relation to which his figure was presented as "non-collusive". His military culture, according to some analysts, qualifies him to manage the delicate phase that began with the ceasefire in force since November 27, after Israeli military operations on Lebanese territory aimed at targeting Hezbollah bases and installations. Among the conditions to be met to transform the truce into an end to hostilities is the withdrawal of Hezbollah militias beyond the Litani River, 30 kilometers from the border with Israel.
Consultations for the new government begin next week. According to rumors circulating in the Lebanese media, the Shiite parties are aiming to obtain the leadership of the crucial Ministry of Economy.
"If we consider the present and the future of the country, the striking fact is that the international community has once again become involved in Lebanon. There is now the possibility of triggering processes to end the crisis, but the players on the national chessboard are still the same," underlines the Maronite priest Rouphael Zgheib, director of the Lebanese Pontifical Mission Societies and professor at the Jesuit University of Saint Joseph, in an interview with Fides. "We must hope," adds Father Zgheib, "that the evolution of international scenarios will help Lebanon to settle into a condition of "positive neutrality", as Patriarch Bechara Boutros Raï has long suggested and hoped for. The new President also spoke of "positive neutrality". It seems to me that this is now the key word."

Regarding the role of Hezbollah and the slogans of Western commentators who speak of its "dismantling" caused by the Israeli military offensives, Father Zgheib believes that it is useful to keep in mind that the Shiite party "is not just an armed group and is not something imported from outside, it has popular roots in Lebanon." And reaching an agreement on the disarmament of the Hezbollah militias is one of the difficult tasks that await the new General President. (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 10/1/2025)

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