Michel Aoun, the 89-year-old Christian president who presided over Lebanon’s cataclysmic financial meltdown and the deadly Beirut port blast, vacates the presidential palace -- leaving a void at the top of a failing state.
Michel Aoun, the 89-year-old Christian president who presided over Lebanon’s cataclysmic financial meltdown and the deadly Beirut port blast, vacates the presidential palace on Sunday, leaving a void at the top of a failing state. Parliament has so far been unable to agree on a successor in the role, which has the power to sign bills into law, appoint new prime ministers and green-light government formations before they are voted on by parliament.
The six-year term that followed saw Lebanon’s army fight off Islamist militants on the Syrian border in 2017 with Hezbollah’s help, a new electoral law passed in 2018 and top energy companies begin exploratory drilling in offshore blocks in 2020. In his final week in the palace, he signed onto a U.S.-mediated deal delineating Lebanon’s southern maritime border with Israel.