President Michel Aoun's photo on a billboard in Mar Mikhael area in Beirut, on Oct. 30, 2022. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Michel Aoun in his last day as Lebanon's president on Monday said that "all available options" are on the table to avoid a political crisis "in the coming days," as Lebanon braces itself to enter an unprecedented vacuum at both the level of the presidency and the government.
"As I said before, I reserve the right to use all available options to avoid the negative scene that awaits us in the coming days," Aoun said in an interview to the Kuwaiti Al-Anba newspaper. "The limit of these options is the Constitution," he added, without specifying the kind of procedures he could enforce.
Criticizing the "rumors and lies" according to which he was accused of wanting to stay in Baabda after the end of his presidential term, he assured he would not "stay one more minute in my position."
"The door is open until the last moment to correct the situation, whether by electing a new president or forming a fully fledged government" that could fill the vacuum at the presidential level until a new president is elected, he added.
Regarding the presidential election, Aoun also said that "it is not a secret that the election of a president needs an agreement from the political groups in Lebanon, and this is far from happening right now."
On Sunday, two days before his term ends, Aoun announced that he had signed the resignation of the government and and that he had sent a letter to Parliament to notify it of the procedure and to ask it to take the necessary measures regarding the matter. In response to the letter, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has summoned the country's MPs to a session on Thursday.
The current government has been considered resigned since May's parliamentary elections. Accordingly, Aoun's latest move is considered purely procedural and does not have legal basis.
According to the Constitution, the authority of the president is transitioned to the government in place in the event of a presidential vacuum; however, Aoun and the Free Patriotic Movement, which Aoun founded and which is currently headed by his son-in-law Gebran Bassil, are against the transition of the president's authority to the current government given its caretaker capacity.
But the tensions between Aoun and his party on one side, and both caretaker Prime Minister and Premier-designate Najib Mikati on the other, prevented the formation of a new cabinet. Aoun accused Mikati of not wanting to form his new cabinet and discriminating against the FPM in the discussions on the ministries.
In this regard, Mikati, who was designated by Parliament to form the next cabinet, said on Sunday that it seemed "preferable" that his cabinet continues to manage current affairs over the formation of a new cabinet that "might not obtain the confidence" of Parliament.
As the governance vacuum looms, Iran called on Monday for the formation of a "strong and national" government in Lebanon, while the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the situation "requires the proper and full functioning of all the country's institutions to take the necessary measures to redress the [situation in the] country and urgently improve the situation of the Lebanese." In a statement published by the ministry, "France calls on all Lebanese actors to assume their responsibilities and to rise to the occasion" and on the MPs to "elect, without delay, a new president of the republic."