Buffer President

Lebanon is headed by a general with a bachelor's degree

The Lebanese parliament yesterday elected 59-year-old Michel Suleiman (pictured) , army commander since 1998, as president of the country. The general will have to swear in a new cabinet, which will include 16 ministers from the pro-Western ruling coalition and 11 ministers (with veto power on government decisions) from the Iran- and Syria-backed opposition, and also personally appoint three members to it. An agreement on this and the development of a new law on the basis of which general elections will be held in 2009 was reached by delegations of the ruling coalition and the opposition led by the Shiite organization Hezbollah through the mediation of the League of Arab States (LAS) after five days of negotiations on May 21 in Qatar.

The ceremony in Beirut was attended by the Emir of Qatar and his Prime Minister, the head of the French Foreign Ministry and his colleagues from the Arab League member countries, as well as the Secretary General of this organization Amr Musa. He expressed hope for Lebanon to enter an “era of stability.” In this he was also supported by the foreign ministers of Iran and Syria, Manouchehr Mottaki and Walid Muallem, who came to Beirut.

General Suleiman maintained the neutrality of the army after the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005, which split society, demanding to limit Syrian influence in Lebanon. In November 2006, the crisis deepened with the resignation of six opposition ministers who protested against the government's anti-Syrian policy.

In November 2007, the powers of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud expired. Since then, parliament has failed to elect his successor 19 times. In May, only the intervention of the army prevented clashes from escalating into civil war, which claimed more than 80 lives.

In recent years, the army has tried to prevent clashes between demonstrators from warring camps. The new president is a Maronite Christian, as required by the constitution. At the same time, he has good relations with Syria and Hezbollah. In the fall of 2006, after the Lebanese-Israeli war, he developed and implemented a plan to station Lebanese army units in a buffer zone in the south of the country between Israel and Hezbollah. In 2007, Suleiman defeated an Islamist uprising in the Nahr al-Barid Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon. The new president has a higher military education, as well as a bachelor's degree in political and administrative sciences.

Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN