Jockeying, intrigue, U-turns and stalemates have characterised the difficult nomination of a consensus candidate for Lebanon's presidency, writes Nicola Nasif* The name of army commander Michel Suleiman has surprisingly entered the fray of Lebanon's constitutional crisis: a new president has consistently failed to be elected since the night of 23 November when the last president stepped down. This is not the first time that an army commander's name has been proposed. Nor is it the first time that Suleiman's name has been proposed. But less than four days after the end of the term of President Emile Lahoud and his leaving office, the Future Movement of Saad Al-Hariri surprised the Lebanese by proposing the army commander's name. Following discreet communications between Al-Hariri, Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora and head of the Democratic Forum Walid Jumblatt, it was agreed to surprise the opposition by supporting Suleiman. Jumblatt had preceded this surprise with one of his own days earlier; overturning positions he had held over the last two years in his campaign against Syria and Hizbullah. He had called for the fall of the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad, the disarming of Hizbullah, and striking Iran, and had rejected any settlement with the opposition, insisting on implementing UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701. The Druze leader has now reversed these positions. He had first rejected the nomination of the army commander, clinging to his traditional position -- in 1998 he refused to join the consensus on nominating then army commander Lahoud, boycotting his election. After likewise initially rejecting the nomination of Suleiman, he then turned around and proposed his nomination in line with Al-Hariri and Al-Siniora. The truth is that Al-Hariri and Al-Siniora forced Jumblatt into this turnaround. Each of them opposes amending the constitution for the election of the army commander for reasons they have attributed, at various times, to the "exorbitant price" that late prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri paid because of his opposition to amending the constitution in September 2004 to extend Lahoud's term. Although Rafik Al-Hariri followed Damascus in carrying out the amendment, participating with his parliamentary bloc in voting for it in parliament, he was killed for his opposition. In recent months, Al-Siniora has been excessive in announcing his opposition to amending the constitution for the election of the army commander, and has reminded interviewers that he did not attend the ministerial session for extending Lahoud's term, despite the insistence of Rafik Al-Hariri that he do so. He has offered two justifications for his position: one on principle, so that the constitution is not violated upon every presidential election; and the other due to the political price paid by the assassination of the former prime minister. Like Jumblatt, the two allies have overcome their previous positions and given a green light for the election of Suleiman. Last Friday, 30 November, Al-Siniora took an early position of support in stating that speedy efforts to find a solution to the constitutional crisis required electing the army commander as president. On 2 December, Al-Hariri and Jumblatt succeeded in convincing allies hesitant about supporting Suleiman, but failed to lighten the pressure of opposition they faced within their respective groups. The 14 March movement had rejected Suleiman for various reasons, including as follows: First, the 14 March forces have believed that the presidential election is the final test of strength they will undergo before seizing power over the entire Lebanese government, and without being forced to offer fundamental concessions to the opposition. Since the parliamentary elections of 2005, they have controlled the absolute majority in the Council of Representatives, the office of prime minister, and a two-thirds majority of seats in the executive branch. Second, they raised the political ceiling of their conditions ever since entering the elections for the Lebanese presidency, prior to the constitutional grace period. They did so by insisting on the election of a nominee from their ranks, opening the door to their Maronite members to be nominated and refusing to countenance a president from outside their ranks. They argued that since they are the parliamentary majority, they possessed the right to elect the president. They also made efforts to reinterpret the legal quorum for convening the Council of Representatives, as defined in Article 49 of the constitution, deeming it a quorum of the absolute majority, which is composed of 65 representatives. They thus threatened to elect a president without the participation of the opposition, against past precedent of a quorum being one half plus one. This was rejected by the opposition, which controls the actual quorum for convening such a session. All Lebanese presidential elections without exception, since the establishment of the republic in 1926, have been decided on two-thirds quorum. Third, they have been dependent upon international support, especially American, in all of the harsh battles they have waged against the opposition since the resignation of five Shia ministers on 11 November 2006. The 14 March forces succeeded in securing the international court decision -- to investigate the assassination of Rafik Al-Hariri -- from the UN Security Council, and in preventing the fall of the Al-Siniora government due to pressure from the street, especially following Sunni-Shia strife that nearly exploded in the events of 25 January 2007. They also succeeded in forcing Hizbullah to implement Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Israeli war on Lebanon, by withdrawing its arms south of Al-Litani River. The international community, and Washington especially, dealt with the Al-Siniora government as though it were the sole representative of Lebanese legitimacy, and with 14 March as though it were the sole popular force of the Lebanese people. Consequently, and thanks to US Ambassador in Beirut Jeffrey Feltman, the 14 March forces became entrenched. They refused to let go of their goal of controlling the whole Lebanese government. Yet the presidential standoff led in its final weeks to a completely different situation. This outcome has been the result of the following: First, the 14 March forces did not succeed in securing the agreement of Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butrous Sfeir to sign off on the election of a president from among its ranks at a quorum of one half plus one. Sfeir did not want to set a precedent of electing a Maronite head of state with a meagre quorum, which would strip the president of the legitimacy necessary for successful governance. After having encouraged the majority to raise the ceiling of its threats to electing a president on an absolute majority quorum, Sfeir's reticence forced Washington to bide its time, knowing that taking such a risky move may lead to a civil war. Second, the success of parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri, a key opposition figure, in rejecting negotiations with 14 March movement and its negotiating representative Al-Hariri. After long refusing, Al-Hariri bowed down to Berri, being forced to do so by the efforts of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kushner up to the eve of the constitutional vacuum. Negotiations ended after failing to select a president, the opposition successfully holding firm until the constitutional vacuum was created, entailing a subtle wrap on the fingers for the majority and its failed manoeuvres. Yet the announcement of the nomination of Suleiman seemed a shock to both sides. It was a surprise to the opposition, which did not expect the support of 14 March for Suleiman. Weeks ago, Suleiman was the nominee of the opposition, because of his position regarding Hizbullah's arms and the conflict with Israel. He was also their nominee due to the cooperation of the army with Hizbullah supporters south of Al-Litani River in a manner that made the resistance not sense the defeat wrought upon them by Resolution 1701. Yet the opposition gave up on Suleiman following the creation of a constitutional vacuum. In reality, no other candidate was going to be accepted when it became clear that among the five names that Sfeir included on a list of possible candidates, urgently requested by Kushner before the end of the constitutional grace period, each would be vetoed by one of the negotiating parties. Suleiman's projection to frontrunner was also surprise to government loyalists who had rejected the nomination of the commander since the end of the military operations in Nahr Al-Bared Camp and the eradication of Fatah Al-Islam by 2 September. Some mentioned his communication with Al-Assad last July to congratulate him on being re-elected to a second term as Syria's president, noting that the army commander was appointed by Syria at the height of its control over Lebanon in 1998, following the election of Lahoud, and that it supported him as army commander for nine years. It was also said that he does not enjoy support from Washington following his exculpation of Syria from charges directed against Damascus by Al-Siniora's government and 14 March forces of sponsoring Fatah Al-Islam. Suleiman has stated that there was no relation between Syrian intelligence and the extremist Islamist group. Thus, following a lengthy debate between government loyalists and the opposition over the list of Sfeir, and the failure to elect a new president following the constitutional grace period, the name of the army commander came again to the fore. Yet this time he is the only candidate in line for the seventh scheduled session of the Council of Representatives to elect a president, slated for 7 December. After the 14 March forces announced their support for Suleiman, in addition to the necessary support of Aoun, and the insistence of Hizbullah in tying its position to that of Aoun, the road is now open -- or nearly so -- for the election of a third Lebanese army commander as president, following in the steps of the founder of the Lebanese Army, Fouad Shihad, who was elected president in 1958, and Emile Lahoud, who became president in 1998. * The writer is a Lebanese journalist.
