Alain Aoun, FPM deputy of Baabda, upon his arrival at the Lebanese Parliament. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient-Le Jour)
Recent statements by MP Alain Aoun regarding the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) 's attempt to renew alliances with its former ally, Hezbollah, ahead of the municipal elections have fueled a new exchange of accusations between the parliamentarian and the Aounist party, particularly concerning the specific situation in Haret Hreik, a Hezbollah stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Aoun, one of the MPs who left the FPM, criticized party leader Gebran Bassil on Thursday during a show on the local channel MTV, accusing him of "not knowing how to engage in dialogue with different viewpoints, but succeeding in making enemies." Asked about the municipal elections scheduled for May 2025, especially in Haret Hreik, his hometown, Aoun highlighted that a party was trying to resolve its situation with the Shiite community, referring to the FPM.
Relations between the FPM and Hezbollah have gradually deteriorated since the end of Michel Aoun's mandate in October 2022. The former mainly reproaches the latter for supporting Sleiman Frangieh, head of the Marada movement, for the presidency, to the detriment of Bassil, Frangieh's opponent on the Christian scene. However, it was especially "the support front" in Gaza opened by Hezbollah following Hamas's attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and the two months of open warfare in Lebanon between September and November 2024 that definitively widened a gap between the two parties.
Haret Hreik Mechanism
The former FPM member recalled the 2010 electoral process in Haret Hreik, with a mixed Shiite and Christian population. According to him, "Christian families first choose their representatives, who then agree on a municipal president, and the Shiite community accepts and supports this choice."
In a statement released Monday, the FPM Committee of Haret Hreik categorically rejected Aoun's remarks, asserting that "the mechanism adopted during the last elections was implemented by an FPM delegation directly mandated by Gebran Bassil" and that "the Christian families had then aligned with him regarding the municipal dossier with Hezbollah," not independently. An agreement was thus made to "ensure positive cooperation, aiming to preserve the public interest and promote coexistence in all concerned localities while ensuring that politics and partisan positions remain apart from these processes," the text added.
The FPM flipped the situation by recalling that "Alain Aoun had claimed to have received promises from the Shiite duo [Amal-Hezbollah], allowing him to choose the two names to be included in the municipal list." He later "admitted to having exaggerated the facts."
In response to these claims from his former party, Aoun defended himself in a statement, saying that he did not "support" any particular candidate for the municipal elections, a deadline perceived as a test of popularity for political parties a year before the 2026 legislative elections. He said he favored "consensus among Christian families, as has always been done." "It is the healthiest and most appropriate way to succeed in these municipal elections, independently of the municipal president's identity," he stated.
In September 2024, four MPs who had just left the FPM (by expulsion or resignation), namely Elias Bou Saab, Alain Aoun, Simon Abi Ramia and Ibrahim Kanaan, reproached Bassil for wanting to shape the FPM to his measure, after having automatically accessed its presidency with the green light from Michel Aoun in 2015.
This article was translated from L'Orient-Le Jour.
