Aoun withdraws candidacy

BEIRUT – Michel Aoun threw a fast­ball on the eve of the last day of Emile Lahoud’s term, propos­ing an inter­est­ing ini­tia­tive to break the dead­lock. I’m still get­ting trans­la­tion, but it appears that he will with­draw his can­di­dacy for the pres­i­dency — which he has claimed as his “right” — but he will nom­i­nate a can­di­date who is not part of the his Free Patri­otic Move­ment bloc. This pres­i­dent would uphold his agree­ment with Hezbol­lah over its arms. (Aoun believes only his Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing with the Party of God pro­tects the Shi’ite mili­tia from a mil­i­tary attack.)
Saad Hariri, leader of the Future Move­ment and the pro-Western bloc in the gov­ern­ment, should in turn nom­i­nate a prime min­is­ter who is not part of the major­ity bloc, but who would sup­port the inter­na­tional tri­bunal inves­ti­gat­ing the assas­si­na­tion of Saad’s father, Rafik Hariri. The tri­bunal is bit­terly opposed by Syria and its allies in Lebanon.
There was also some­thing about the major­ity would get 55 per­cent of the cab­i­net and the oppo­si­tion would get 45 per­cent — includ­ing two “sov­er­eign” min­istries. That gives it veto power. That won’t play well, prob­a­bly.
What’s most inter­est­ing is that Aoun made this ini­tia­tive pub­licly, in a press con­fer­ence, rather than the usual under-the-table man­ner of Lebanese politi­cians.
Quck reax analy­sis: This allows Hezbol­lah to accept another can­di­date other than Aoun, who was report­edly giv­ing Hezbol­lah and even Syria headaches. So I think Aoun has been made to real­ize he doesn’t have nearly the amount of sup­port among his allies or even among the Chris­tians he thought he did, and he was becom­ing an obsta­cle to get­ting Hezbol­lah out of the cor­ner it had painted itself into. Because make no doubt: this ini­tia­tive wouldn’t have gone for­ward with­out Syria’s bless­ing. It does allows Aoun to save some face. Maybe it will keep every­one happy until the next cri­sis.
In short, this is move­ment for­ward in a coun­try where dead­lock has been the order of the day for months.
Your play, March 14.
UPDATE: Hariri has rejected Aoun’s pro­posal and called for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to gather for a vote tomor­row. Hezbol­lah and its allies have said they will boy­cott any ses­sion, mean­ing March 14 could be head­ing for a 50+1 vote. This could lead to a coup, two rival gov­ern­ments, street fight­ing and a host of prob­lems. This could be game on.

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