Reports: Lebanon’s Hariri backs Aoun for presidency

Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri intends to endorse Michel Aoun for the country’s vacant presidency, political sources said, though a leading member of Al-Hariri’s party was quoted as saying the decision was not yet final.

The proposal would result in Aoun, a political ally of the Iranian-backed Shia group Hezbollah, becoming head of state and Al-Hariri becoming prime minister for the second time, the senior political sources said.

Political conflict has left the Lebanese presidency empty for two and a half years. The post is reserved for a Maronite Christian in Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing arrangements.

It was not immediately clear if Aoun’s candidacy would enjoy enough support among other Lebanese politicians to secure the necessary two-thirds quorum for the vote in the 128-seat parliament. The next scheduled parliamentary session to elect a president is set for 31 October.

Opponents of Aoun’s candidacy include the influential Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is head of the Shi’ite Amal Movement and a close ally of Hezbollah. Hezbollah itself has yet to comment.

Two senior politicians told Reuters that Al-Hariri had expressed his intention to nominate Aoun, who is in his 80s, for the presidency as part of the power-sharing deal.

A third source, a member of Al-Hariri’s Future Movement, confirmed Al-Hariri had expressed this intention, but members of his own parliamentary bloc opposed it.

Fouad Siniora, a former prime minister and head of the Future Movement’s parliamentary bloc, told the newspaper Daily Star that Al-Hariri had told his MPs yesterday that he had decided to support Aoun’s candidacy for the presidency, but added that there was “no final decision yet on this matter”.

Al-Hariri, 46, led the “March 14” alliance against Hezbollah and its allies, after the assassination of his father, Rafik Al-Hariri, in 2005. He became prime minister in 2009, but his cabinet was toppled in 2011 when Hezbollah and its allies resigned.

Aoun heads the largest Christian bloc in the parliament elected in 2009, the last time Lebanese voted. He has been a political ally of Hezbollah since 2006.

Aoun was army commander and led one of two rival governments during the final years of the Lebanese civil war until the Syrian army forced him from the presidential palace and into exile.

He returned to the country in 2005 after Syrian forces withdrew under international pressure following the Al-Hariri assassination.