BAABDA, Lebanon —
Lebanon’s outgoing head of
state, Michel Aoun, left the presidential palace Sunday, a day before his
mandate expires without a designated successor, deepening the country’s
political crisis.
اضافة اعلان
His six-year term was marred by mass protests, a
painful economic downturn and the August 2020 mega-explosion of ammonium
nitrate that killed hundreds and laid waste to swathes of Beirut.
Aoun, a Maronite Christian in his late 80s, said he
had signed a final decree formalizing the resignation of premier
Najib Mikati’s
caretaker government, exacerbating a months-long power struggle that has
paralyzed the government.
Mikati, a Sunni Muslim, retorted that Aoun’s
decision had “no constitutional basis” and that his cabinet would “continue to
carry out all its constitutional duties, including its caretaker functions”.
Aoun’s term formally ends Monday, complicating
politics in Lebanon at a time it must meet reform demands from the
International Monetary Fund to access billions of dollars in loans.
Thousands of well-wishers came to pay tribute to
Aoun, a former army chief and head of the
Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), which
is allied with the powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah.
Aoun’s supporters, some of whom had slept in tents
outside the presidential palace near Beirut, came brandishing portraits of the
man widely referred to as the “general”, dating back to his role in the
1975–1990 civil war.
“We have come to escort the president at the end of
his mandate, to tell him that we are with him and that we will continue the
struggle by his side,” said one, teacher Joumana Nahed.
Lebanese lawmakers have tried and failed four times
in a month to agree on electing a successor to Aoun.
Neither Hezbollah nor its opponents have the clear
majority needed to impose a candidate to succeed him.
The president’s powers fall to the Council of
Ministers if he leaves office without a successor. A cabinet in a caretaker
role cannot, however, take important decisions that might impact the country’s
fate, Lahham said.
‘Vacuum and paralysis’
Before bowing out, Aoun
delivered a final broadside against Mikati.
“This morning, I sent a letter to parliament and
signed a decree that considers the government resigned,” he told supporters
before leaving the palace in the hills above Beirut.
Experts say the move will likely not impact the work
of Mikati’s government, which has remained in a caretaker role since
legislative elections in the spring.
But it was part of ongoing political arm-wrestling
between Aoun and Mikati, who is also in charge of forming a new government.
Aoun told parliament in a letter that Mikati was
“uninterested” in forming a new cabinet to deal with Lebanon’s myriad problems
and called on him to resign.
Constitutional expert Wissam Lahham said that “what
Aoun is doing is unprecedented” since Lebanon adopted its constitution in 1926.
Under Lebanese law, a government that has resigned
continues in a caretaker role until a new one is formed, Lahham said,
describing
Aoun’s decree as “meaningless”.
Lawmaker Ghassan Hasbani of the Lebanese Forces, the
FPM’s Christian rivals, said that Aoun had dealt an additional blow to the
country’s paralyzed state institutions by signing the decree.
“The government will now operate only within the
narrowest of caretaker scopes,” Hasbani said, while parliament can no longer
meet to legislate, only to vote on a new president.
“We are faced with a vacuum at the executive level
and paralysis of the legislative body.”
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