As soon as parliament gives its vote of confidence to the new government led by Tammam Salam, Lebanon’s political factions are set to begin preparations for the upcoming presidential election. Yet it is not the constitutional deadline beginning on Tuesday that will be the starting gun for the expected showdown, but rather the fact the 2014 election has been preempted with new rules: two tough candidates who represent the upper ceilings of Lebanon’s two main rival camps.
March 8 and March 14 are entering a tough presidential battle for the second time since their inception as political coalitions in 2005.
Contrary to what happened in the 2007 election, when the battle began early, at least several months before the end of then-President Emile Lahoud’s term – including a bitter constitutional quarrel and March 14 threatening to impose its candidate with 50 percent of the vote plus one – the two camps are now talking modestly about the constitution.
So far at least, they are not straining to interpret Article 49, which is the article the outlines the election of the president, but they have put forward different rules for the battle. There is no debate about the quorum in parliament this time, or about which candidate each camp will try to impose, and there are no threats about seeking help from external parties to win.
In the 2007 election, March 14 said that it had more than one candidate from its ranks, proposing figures like MPs Boutros Harb and Robert Ghanem, and the late MP Nassib Lahoud. For its part, the March 8 camp, specifically Hezbollah, refrained from voicing its public support for the candidacy of MP Michel Aoun, without distancing itself from him since it never suggested an alternative candidate.
Today, after the formation of Tammam Salam’s government consumed months of what would have been the normal timeframe for the presidential election campaign, and long before the constitutional deadline, March 8 and March 14 seem confused about how to deal with it, as neither side seems to have an initiative or a clear position on the election.
Meanwhile, there have been no serious signals from the international community, especially Western powers, in this regard. With the exception of the qualities that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recently said the “pro-resistance” president should have, none of the Arab countries have so far shown any enthusiasm to play a direct role in the “making” of the new Lebanese president either. This is an additional reason to believe the presidential election has no particular significance for anyone in the international community right now, unlike previous rounds.
In 1989 and 1998, the West supported, without reservation, Damascus’s candidates; Presidents Elias Hrawi and Emile Lahoud, and also the extension of Hrawi’s term in 1995. Then, when Damascus sought to extend Lahoud’s term, Western powers objected, with the UN Security Council issuing resolution 1559 to thwart the move in 2004. In 2008, Qatar, Syria, and most Arab countries endorsed the settlement reached in Doha and the election of President Michel Suleiman, albeit six months after the constitutional deadline.
For the first time in years then, the election appears like a ball in an abandoned court. More than any time in the past, especially in relation to the 2007 election, Maronite leaders are behaving on the basis that they are the key, while the Sunni and Shia parties are keeping mum, not wanting to enter into the details of the election, or into the mysterious and ambiguous criteria for candidates.
On the surface, it appears as though the election boils down to two men who are both arguing that a “strong president” must be elected, but who have different and contradictory interpretations for what that means. Neither sees the other as a strong president.
These two candidates are MP Michel Aoun of the Free Patriotic Movement and the leader of the Lebanese Forces, Samir Geagea. However, other candidates from both March 8 and March 14, such as former President Amin Gemayel, MPs Boutros Harb, Suleiman Franjieh, and Robert Ghanem, do not share this view. They do not see themselves as strong candidates going by those criteria, but they don’t believe this is a prerequisite for the post -- unless something unexpected were to happen.
On the anniversary of March 14, Geagea made a speech similar to that of assassinated President Bashir Gemayel – when he was still leader of the Lebanese Forces – at the anniversary of the Kataeb Party in November 1981. In that speech, Bashir Gemayel talked about himself at length, presenting his own qualities as ideal for the presidency, at a time when it was difficult for anyone to believe he could be elected.
Geagea did the same thing, more than three decades later, in a similar speech. When Israel invaded south Lebanon the following year, on June 6, 1982, Bashir told then-Information Minister Michel Edde, at the entrance to the Baabda Palace, and overheard by the Soviet ambassador, “Sorry Michel, I will be the president.” Before that, Bashir had pledged to Edde that he would support him as a presidential candidate.
But the unexpected happened; the Israeli invasion, and Bashir was elected. So perhaps Aoun and Geagea are waiting for an equally important event to take place in order to pave their way to the presidential palace.
Neither Aoun nor Geagea has been endorsed by their Sunni or Shia allies. It might be early to expect this to happen, if it happens at all. Aoun and Geagea did not suggest that they had decided to run for the post in coordination with their respective allies.
The two men are behaving as though they are trying to drag their allies to endorse them, and embarrass other candidates in March 8 and March 14 and beyond, as if to say that there is no room for those as long as Aoun and Geagea represent the Christian spearheads of the Shia and Sunni factions, respectively.
The two men are also making the case for a candidate who has exceptional popularity, and argue that the Christians must choose the president from within the two main parties – March 8 and March 14. Aoun and Geagea, in all what they have said about the presidential election so far, have implicitly stressed their rejection of any other options, a la 2007; that there should be no amendment of the constitution to allow certain figures to be elected - such as army commanders - and no weak candidates from outside the two main camps.
Neither Aoun nor Geagea have put forward a special interpretation of what the quorum should be like for the election session, and both have agreed to the normal procedures of electing a president, namely, with a sufficient number of MPs (two-thirds) meeting and voting. In other words, they do not mind having a real competition and allow whoever obtains the majority to win. Both men believe a president will be elected in the second round, as neither one of them will be able to win from the first round.
But perhaps more importantly, Aoun and Geagea have discounted the possibility of electing a so-called consensus president, the antithesis of their “strong president.” In effect, Aoun and Geagea have a joint position, namely, going into the election as defiant and provocative candidates who are affiliated to one of the two factions of the Lebanese divide – because only by being as such, they believe, these candidates can give their opponents the guarantees they require, and force them through without abandoning their allies.
Aoun and Geagea have brought the election to a head, in a way that envisages restoring the traditions of past presidential elections. For decades, there were elections that saw multiple rounds and real competition before and during the voting session, sometimes with two equally strong candidates: Camille Chamoun and Hamid Franjieh in 1952; Fouad Chehab and Raymond Edde in 1958; Suleiman Franjieh and Elias Sarkis in 1970; and Elias Sarkis and Raymond Edde in 1976, down to the last true competition seen in Parliament in 1989, between Rene Moawad, George Saadeh, and Elias Hrawi.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.