Who is Joseph Aoun, the new president of Lebanon?

Lebanese Army commander Joseph Aoun is the new president of Lebanon.

The 61-year-old becomes Lebanon’s 14th president, having filled a presidential vacuum of more than two years left by his predecessor, Michel Aoun – who is not related to the new president.

Joseph Aoun’s appointment overcomes a major impasse; Lebanon’s parliament had met on 12 prior occasions to vote for a president but failed to elect one.

Aoun’s support in parliament came from a wide spectrum of political figures, and he eventually won 99 votes from the 128-seat 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 came to prominence during his time as Lebanon’s army commander, a position he ascended to in 2017, and which, like the president of the republic, has to be occupied by a member of Aoun’s sect, Maronite Christianity.

Aoun’s official Lebanese army biography states that he enrolled in the military academy in 1983, during the Lebanese civil war.

He steadily rose through the ranks, undergoing various training in Lebanon and abroad, including with the US counterterrorism programme. He also was awarded Lebanon’s Medal of War three times, along with several other medals and honours.

In August 2017, shortly after taking charge of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), Aoun put his counterterrorism training to use by launching an operation targeting ISIL (ISIS) fighters who had spent years in the mountainous terrain between Syria and Lebanon – particularly on the outskirts of Christian villages Ras Baalbek and Qaa in the northeastern Bekaa Valley.

The operation’s success boosted Aoun’s standing. And Aoun was also able to use his years at the top of the LAF to forge close connections with various regional and international actors, including the United States, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – a network that has been particularly useful in gathering support around Aoun for the presidency.

Economic and political crises

Aoun’s term as commander of the Lebanese army coincided with a period of incredible difficulty for the country.

A years-long economic crisis has left millions of Lebanese struggling – many soldiers in the army have had to take on second jobs to get by.

The economic crisis has been seen as emblematic of the wider governance crisis in Lebanon. A sectarian political system has entrenched an ageing political gerontocracy, associated with corruption and political mismanagement.

The horror of the Beirut port explosion in August 2020, which killed more than 220 people, added to the sense that the country’s rulers had completely failed the Lebanese people.

And when President Michel Aoun vacated the presidency in October 2022, the Lebanese parliament was unable to agree on a successor, despite meeting repeatedly to vote. This left the Lebanese state effectively paralysed, just as action was needed to confront the country’s economic challenges.

The institution Aoun was in charge of, the Lebanese army, was also widely seen as weaker than the Shia group Hezbollah, another factor eroding the effectiveness of the Lebanese state.

To worsen matters for the country, Israel’s war on Gaza quickly dragged in Lebanon, as Hezbollah began an exchange of fire with Israel on October 8, 2023, which eventually culminated in two months of devastating Israeli bombing and a land invasion that killed more than 4,000 people, and culminated with a ceasefire deal on November 27 last year.

Opportunity

But, despite the death and destruction, the war’s resolution did open a pathway to finally selecting a president, as international and domestic pressure increased 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 the man to take advantage.

He kept the Lebanese army out of the war with Israel, despite the killing of more than 40 Lebanese troops during that period, and he has also been seen as an important figure in ensuring Lebanon’s commitment to the ceasefire, which stipulates that Hezbollah must pull back from south of the Litani River and be replaced by the Lebanese army, to ensure that Israel will pull back behind the UN-defined border between Lebanon and Israel.

Notably, Israel has welcomed Aoun’s appointment.

But outside of the external and domestic support for Aoun, it is hard to define him politically, perhaps one of the reasons for his success in being chosen as president.

Not much is known about his political views, and he rarely gave interviews – although in 2021 he did criticise politicians for Lebanon’s financial crisis, saying that soldiers were going hungry.

Aoun had not stated a clear position on Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal, but in his inauguration speech, he did pledge “to affirm the state’s right to monopolise the carrying of weapons”. What steps he will take to enforce that remain to be seen, and it will be difficult to see Hezbollah acquiescing to any demand for it to disarm.

The new president also pledged to rebuild the areas targeted by Israel, including the south and the Beirut Dahiyeh suburb.

His emphasis on national unity comes at a rare moment of agreement; Aoun’s appointment ends a bitter period of parliamentary division.

But it will take much more to prove to the Lebanese people that the country has now truly turned a corner, and that its political leadership has the ability to actually make the lives of millions of Lebanese better – a role it has failed in for so many years.