{"id":415865,"date":"2025-01-09T19:12:15","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T18:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/01\/09\/libano-joseph-aoun-presidente\/"},"modified":"2025-01-09T19:42:26","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T18:42:26","slug":"joseph-aoun-is-the-new-president-of-lebanon-eus-congratulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/01\/09\/joseph-aoun-is-the-new-president-of-lebanon-eus-congratulations\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph Aoun is the new president of Lebanon. EU’s congratulations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels\u00a0– After\u00a0more than two years of political vacuum<\/strong>, a new president has finally been\u00a0elected<\/strong>\u00a0in Cedar Country. He is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces\u00a0Joseph Aoun<\/strong>, who was sworn in today (Jan. 9) by deputies in Beirut after twelve unsuccessful attempts.<\/span><\/p>\n

The post had remained vacant since October 2022<\/strong>, when the term of the previous head of state, Michel Aoun<\/strong> (there are no family ties between the two), expired. The Lebanese parliament had tried twelve times to appoint a successor<\/strong>\u00a0but only today managed to elect the army chief. The consensus\u00a0came on the second ballot<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In his acceptance speech, the newly elected president promised improved diplomatic relations “eastward and westward”\u00a0<\/strong>and to “rebuild what Israeli aggression has destroyed<\/strong> throughout Lebanon” as well as to increase investment in the national military forces<\/strong>, which, despite being trained by the U.S. military, are unable to maintain the legitimate monopoly of force<\/strong> in the country.<\/p>\n

Sixty years old, Aoun joined the army in 1983. His election at least partially unlocks the deep political paralysis into which Lebanon has plunged for several years<\/strong>: without a stable government, with a collapsing economy and riven<\/strong>\u00a0by the war with Israel<\/strong>, which has repeatedly attacked various areas of its neighbour and invaded a portion of it, to the south, only to withdraw under a precarious ceasefire stipulated<\/a> in late November<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Unifil\"<\/a>
Soldiers of the Unifil mission in southern Lebanon (photo: Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, the new head of state will have to appoint a prime minister<\/strong> in place of the current one, who is in interim<\/i> office, and establish a stable executive<\/strong>. However, it will not be an easy process because the formation of the government must be agreed upon with Parliament.<\/p>\n

The Parliament’s difficulties in identifying a new president of the Republic are due to the\u00a0deep fragmentation of the hemicycle<\/strong>, which is split not only between groups representing\u00a0various minorities and religious denominations<\/strong>\u00a0but especially between\u00a0factions for and against Hezbollah<\/strong>, the pro-Iranian Shiite militia that has de facto replaced the Lebanese army and has a decisive political grip on the parliament and government in Beirut.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, it was precisely the\u00a0<\/span>weakening<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>of the Party of God<\/strong>\u00a0due to the war with Tel Aviv, combined with\u00a0<\/span>strong international pressure<\/strong>,\u00a0especially from\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0United States<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/strong>, that paved the way for Joseph Aoun’s\u00a0cross-party endorsement<\/strong>. Thus, Hezbollah candidate\u00a0Suleiman Frangieh<\/strong>\u00a0withdrew earlier this week and endorsed Aoun, a Maronite Christian.<\/span><\/p>\n

To elect the president of the republic, there must be a two-thirds majority in parliament on the first ballot<\/strong> (86 votes out of 128 total seats), while from the second, a simple majority<\/strong> (65 “yes” votes) is sufficient. Aoun got 71 support in the first round and 99 in the second.<\/p>\n

Congratulations came later in the day from two EU heavyweights. Commission Chairwoman Ursula von der Leyen<\/strong>, still indisposed by an acute pneumonia<\/strong> that forced her to postpone all institutional engagements, hailed Aoun’s appointment as “a moment of hope for the Lebanese<\/strong>, who have been able to come together to plot a course and build a better future<\/strong>,” and wished the start of a period of newfound political stability for the battered Levantine country.<\/p>\n

\n

Congratulations to Joseph Aoun on his election as President of Lebanon.<\/p>\n

A moment of hope for the Lebanese, who have come together to chart a course and build a better future.<\/p>\n

The way is now open for stability and reform. Europe supports this path.<\/p>\n

– Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) January 9, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The High Representative for Foreign Policy, Kaja Kallas<\/strong>, stressed that Brussels now expects “the rapid formation of a government<\/strong> capable of implementing a reform-oriented program.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beirut’s parliament has agreed on the name of the army chief, who will now have the difficult task of trying to revive a country in deep political and economic crisis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":415861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[29825,30146,26237,25998],"class_list":["post-415865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-hezbollah-en","tag-joseph-aoun-en","tag-libano-en","tag-president-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415865"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415869,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415865\/revisions\/415869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}