Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1998, page 60

Letter From Lebanon

Scheduled Fall Presidential Elections in Lebanon Presage New Political Faces and Policies

By Carole Dagher

Presidential elections are scheduled to take place in Lebanon sometime in the two-month period between Sept. 21 and Nov. 21, which is the constitutional period for the Parliament to elect a new president. Unlike 1995, the year when current President Elias Hrawi’s term was extended for three years, odds are for a change. Both diplomatic and Lebanese political analysts say there is little chance for any renewal of Hrawi’s mandate.

Instead, there is a public outcry for restoring the democratic process in Lebanon. The municipal elections of last spring were a major turning point in that regard, setting the scene for a normal presidential election too.

On various occasions the United States, through President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Ambassador Richard Jones, have called for normal and free presidential, as well as municipal, elections in Lebanon and insisted on the need for a change at the highest level of the state. This clear message did not go unheard by the Syrian regime, which is the primary “electoral power” in Lebanon.

The announcement of a first-ever visit by Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to Lebanon this fall (the precise date has not yet been set) took all Lebanon by surprise—including President Hrawi, according to his entourage. This is because Syria has never officially recognized Lebanon’s independence, and does not have formal diplomatic relations with its neighbor.

Political analysts and journalists think the visit will effectively mean official recognition by the Damascus regime of Lebanon’s sovereignty. Some go beyond that analysis, and view it as a visit destined to honor and thank President Hrawi for his role in developing and tightening Lebanese-Syrian “privileged relations” through a series of treaties meant to formalize full cooperation between the two countries on various economic, cultural and political levels. According to many analysts, President Assad also will want to make sure that the next Lebanese president follows that path and remains a faithful ally to the Syrian regime.

On the internal level, the Lebanese presidential election is supposed to implement a major step forward in post-war Lebanese reconstruction and state building, despite the fact that Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri is almost certain to remain at his post.

After a nine-year term, President Hrawi will be leaving office amidst an economic recession and a depressed market, fed by news of routine corrupt practices at the highest government levels.

There is a public outcry for restoring the democratic process.

That is a major reason why opinion polls during the winter and spring of 1998 showed General Emile Lahoud, the commander-in-chief of the army, as the favorite candidate of the Lebanese people, regardless of their religious or political affiliations.

Lahoud’s personal integrity and his success in rebuilding a once torn-apart and divided army, and in keeping it away from political interference, have been viewed as his main assets. But the election of the head of the Lebanese Armed Forces as the president needs an amendment to the Lebanese constitution.

Article 49 of the constitution prevents any “first category functionary” from running for president unless that official vacated his job at least two years earlier. That restriction applies both to the commander-in-chief of the army and to the governor of the federal Bank of Lebanon, both seats held by Maronite Christians. (According to the unwritten National Pact, the president of the Republic is always a Maronite.)

Article 49 also prohibits the current president from running again for office after expiration of his six-year mandate. That requirement was amended in 1995, however, so as to allow President Hrawi to extend his mandate for three more years.

If any amendment to the constitution has to be ratified by Parliament in order to facilitate the election of General Lahoud, it should be done between the 21st of September and the 21st of October.

Meanwhile, only one of several other presidential hopefuls, most of whom are members of parliament, had, by mid-September, officially declared his candidacy. He is Boutros Harb, deputy for the Batroun region in north Lebanon. In his declaration, Harb assumed he had no real chance of being elected because he put the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon into his platform, explaining that he wanted to take a principled stand.

For any president to come, there is also a real challenge in southern Lebanon, where Israeli forces pursue their occupation and the accompanying fighting with the Lebanese resistance guerrillas of the Shi’i Hezbollah militia; its rival for Shi’i support, the “Amal” militia; and with armed members of the Lebanese communist party.

One of the latter group’s most famous prisoners in Khyam, the detention center operated by the pro-Israel South Lebanon Army (SLA), was Souha Bechara, who attempted to kill Gen. Antoine Lahd, head of the SLA, in the 1980s. Bechara was released in early September by the Israelis and their SLA allies. She has been hailed by her Lebanese compatriots as a heroine and received by the president of the republic at the Baabda palace.

Meanwhile, long-overdue implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 425, calling for unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, seems to be bogged down in Israeli domestic politics. No Lebanese have any illusions that it will be carried out soon.

A New U.S. Ambassador Takes Office

Newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon David Satterfield arrived in Lebanon in mid-September. Satterfield was Near East adviser in the National Security Council during the first Clinton term and since then has been serving in the State Department. He served in the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon during the 1980s and later represented the U.S. government in the Arab League meetings in Taif, Saudi Arabia, that put an end in September 1989 to the Lebanese civil war.

Before his departure from Washington, he met at the Department of Commerce with representatives of U.S. companies involved in or interested in doing business with Lebanon. At the meeting the U.S. business representatives expressed their hopes for a better legal and business environment for U.S. companies in Beirut, and their strong desire to participate in major construction projects currently under way there.