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Lebanese President Michel Aoun is preparing to leave the presidential palace on Sunday, one day before the end of his term, and in the presence of some of his supporters, they spent the night near the presidential palace in Baabda. As there is no candidate capable of obtaining the required majority in Parliament, Lebanon is going through a phase of political vacuum that risks aggravating the country’s crises in light of the accelerating economic collapse three years ago and with a provisional government with limited powers. .
One day before the end of his presidential term, he is preparing Lebanese President Michel Aoun On Sunday he had to leave the presidential palace, ending a mandate marked by several crises, accompanied by the popularity of his partisans, some of whom spent the night near the palace. Lebanon is also entering a phase of political vacuum, due to the absence of a candidate capable of obtaining the required majority in Parliament.
From the early hours of the morning, supporters of the Free Patriotic Movement, founded by Aoun, flocked to the vicinity of the building in the Baabda area overlooking Beirut. Some of them carry the movement’s orange banners and Aoun’s images of the various stages of his military and political career.
“We have come to accompany President In the last moments of the covenant, and let’s tell him that we are with you and we will continue the fight with you and wherever you are, the homeland is “.
The political vacuum risks aggravating the country’s crises in light of an accelerating economic collapse three years ago and a provisional government with limited powers, with political forces failing to form a government since May.
Dozens of Aoun’s supporters spent the night in tents on the road leading to the palace entrance, so they could accompany Aoun as he moved at noon to his new residence in the Rabieh area, northeast of Beirut.
One of them, Johnny Medawar, a dentist, told AFP: “We came to assure the general that we still love him and that we will follow him to the end of the world.”
“General” is a nickname used by Aoun supporters to refer to him, and has remained true to his name since his appointment as army chief in 1984.
After a political deal that led to his presidency in 2016, Aoun pledged to achieve economic revival and social stability and to eradicate corruption. But the promises were not kept.
The second half of his tenure was marked by political paralysis, an accelerating economic collapse and unprecedented demonstrations in October 2019 that lasted for months, then a horrific explosion in the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020, which doubled popular resentment against the performance of the political class.
Although he has lost much of his popularity, especially in the Christian arena, Aoun is still in the eyes of his partisans and supporters a “brave and clean-skinned leader” and a leader outside the herd of traditional and feudal political families in a country with sectarian composition par excellence.
“Between 1989 and 1990, we spent time close to the president before the Syrian Air Force killed him from Baabda, and today we came to renew our commitment to him,” said Nabil Rahbani (59), after spending the night in the vicinity of the Palace.
In 1989, the Baabda Palace was the destination of thousands of supporters of Aoun, who at the time assumed a military government and refused to hand over power to an elected president. In 1990 he was expelled from the palace after a military operation led by the Syrian army, and took refuge in the French embassy, then in France, where he spent 15 years in exile and founded his own political current.
FRANCE 24 / AFP
