Aoun vs. Geagea: time to bridge the gap?
Wassim Mroueh/The Daily Star/Dec. 03, 2014
BEIRUT: In October 1989, Lebanese MPs signed the Taif agreement in Saudi Arabia in a bid to put an end to the country’s 15-year Civil War.
But few would have imagined that the last round of internal fighting, which began three months later, would be one of the fiercest: the military confrontation between Samir Geagea and Michel Aoun.
Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces militia, backed the Saudi-brokered deal, while Aoun, then Army commander and head of a transitional military government, refused to recognize it.
The ensuing war, dubbed a “war of elimination” by Geagea, who said Aoun’s aim was to wipe out his group, killed and wounded thousands and left much of the country’s Christian areas in tatters.
The violence lasted for months, pushing many Christians to emigrate from the country.
After more than two decades, the rivalry between both figures, now leaders of two of the largest Christian parliamentary blocs, is far from over.
While their current confrontation may not be leading to death and destruction, it has kept the top Christian post in the country vacant for over six months.
Backed by the March 8 coalition, Aoun argues that he represents Christians the most and thus should be elected the country’s new president.
But his claims are strongly disputed by Geagea, the presidential candidate of the March 14 coalition.
Parliament has failed to elect a president 15 times, with lawmakers from Aoun’s parliamentary bloc and most other March 8 MPs thwarting the quorum needed in electoral sessions under the pretext that no agreement has been reached on a candidate who truly represents Christians.
Even last year, Aoun and Geagea were unable to agree on a new election law to provide fairer representation for Christians.
According to Sami Nader, an economist and Middle Eastern affairs analyst, the struggle for power between Aoun and Geagea is “healthy and good” – so long as it remains democratic.
“The problem is when disputes happen at the expense of the republic. This leads to the fall of institutions and weakens the Christians first and foremost, and of course all Lebanese,” Nader told The Daily Star.
He explained that the rivalry between Aoun and Geagea should not cause Parliament’s failure to elect a president.
“The problem … is that their disputes come at the expense of institutions. This continuous thwarting of presidential election is unacceptable,” Nader added.
Preventing quorum once or twice was understandable, he said, “but you can’t carry on with this method.”
“This undermines democracy and has led to committing a second mistake, which is the extension of Parliament’s term,” Nader added, referring to last month’s second extension of Parliament’s mandate for two years and seven months.
Some political factions backed the extension under the pretext that holding parliamentary elections during a presidential vacuum would cause constitutional problems.
Both Aoun and Geagea rose to prominence in the mid-1980s. Aoun was appointed an Army commander in June 1984, and less than two years later, in January 1986, Geagea assumed the leadership of the Lebanese Forces militia.
“From the very beginning, the dispute between them was personal, they approached things differently,” said Karim Pakradouni, the former leader of the Kataeb Party, who also served as Geagea’s deputy in the 1980s.
“Aoun considered Geagea to be the head of a militia while Geagea believed that Aoun led a failed institution that had proved itself to be ineffective during the Civil War,” Pakradouni said.
After Aoun went into self-imposed exile in France in 1991 and Geagea was sent to prison three years later, supporters of both struggled together against Syria’s military presence in Lebanon.
Following Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon in April 2005, Aoun quickly returned to the country and Geagea was released not long after, and before long, the sharp differences between the two resurfaced again.
Aoun signed a memorandum of understanding with Hezbollah in February 2006, while Geagea joined the March 14 coalition.
Pakradouni said he did not fear the effects of rivalry between Christian leaders, adding that such dynamics had characterized Lebanese politics since independence.
However, he said it was high time for Geagea, Aoun, Kataeb Party leader Amine Gemayel and MP Sleiman Frangieh of the Marada Movement to form a front aimed at discussing ways to protect Christians in Lebanon in light of the regional turmoil and rise of extremist, religiously intolerant Islamist groups.
“This dispute between Aoun and Geagea has been detrimental for Christians. It is depriving them of their highest post in the state and of an election law providing fair representation,” Pakradouni said.
The former minister said that joining one front to try to solve these problems did not mean that Aoun and Geagea would have to abandon their alliances altogether.
“I can never see them in one political alliance at all, but let them at least agree on going to Parliament to elect a president.”
And the frustration over Geagea and Aoun’s lack of agreement on key issues is filtering down to the general public.
Nicholas Muaiqel, a resident of the predominantly Christian Ashrafieh neighborhood of Beirut, is fed up with both leaders.
“Are these the only people who are good at politics in the country? Of course we need new leaders,” Muaiqel said, sitting in his shop.
After outlining atrocities he said Aoun and Geagea committed during the Civil War, Muaiqel added: “Now one is allied to the Shiites and the other to the Sunnis. But Sunnis and Shiites are actually fooling both.”
“I think we need a new mandatory power that would eradicate all this political class and get us a new one.”
For Ibrahim Haddad, the owner of a textile shop in the same neighborhood, the Lebanese were too busy to look for an alternative to Geagea, Aoun or any other leader.
“I am a Christian from Ashrafieh who is not loyal to any of these leaders,” he said.
“The average Lebanese citizen is interested in how to earn a living rather than how to build a state.”
Haddad said that the everlasting political disputes between Aoun and Geagea were definitely weakening Christians in Lebanon.
“But do they listen to me if I say so?” he added.
But Naji Hayek, an official from Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, argued otherwise.
“The rift between the Christians is not the reason for what is happening to them at all [the community’s weakness in Lebanon],” he said. “Between the Sunnis and Shiites it is worse … they are killing each other in Syria.”
Regardless, Hayek pointed to the fact that the Future Movement supported the election of a speaker who truly represented Shiites and Hezbollah and Amal backed the nomination of a prime minister who is popular among Sunnis.
“When it comes to the Christians, nobody respects anything … this is very offensive,” he said.
Hayek said the Future Movement should stop vetoing Aoun’s candidacy: “They should come and say: We respect the Christian will.”
Hayek said that the presidential candidate who represented Christians the most should become a president, adding: “Samir Geagea should accept that Michel Aoun represents Christians more than him.”
But such an arrangement would be even worse for the Christian community than the current situation, according to LF MP Fadi Karam.
“Aoun claims to be the head of the largest Christian bloc. Submission to him in a bid to prevent rivalry within the Christian society would be more destructive to the Christians,” Karam said.
He said that Aoun did not believe in institutions, was allied to authoritarian regimes, backed Hezbollah’s arsenal and did not believe that anyone other than him could work in politics. “Geagea does not accept all this, he believes in political competition and democracy … there is a big difference between the two.”
“It is an existential issue and it is difficult to make any concessions.”
