President Aoun steps down amid Lebanon's financial crisis

Michel Aoun, the 89-year-old Christian president who presided over Lebanon's catastrophic financial collapse and the deadly Beirut port explosion, vacates the presidential palace on Sunday, leaving a vacuum at the top of a failed state.

Parliament has so far failed to agree on a successor for the post, which has the power to sign bills, appoint new prime ministers and green-light government formations before they are voted on by parliament. Lebanon is currently governed by an interim cabinet, as it has been for more than half of Aoun's tenure, as the prime minister-designate has been trying to form a government for six months. Dozens of Aoun's supporters gathered at Baabda Palace to bid him farewell, wearing the orange color of his Free Patriotic Movement party and carrying portraits of him as president and decades ago when he was army commander. A 73-year-old man, wearing army fatigues he wore when he served under Aoun in the civil war, told Reuters he wished Aoun would stay in office for another three years. Therese Younes, 16, who came with other young people, said she had supported Aoun since she was eight and was sad to see him go. "If I was 18, I would have left the country. After Michel Aoun, there is no Lebanon," Younes said. Aoun is a deeply divisive figure, beloved by many Christians who see him as a defender of Lebanon's sectarian system but accused by critics of enabling corruption and helping the armed group Hezbollah gain influence. In 2016, Aoun won the presidency with the backing of both Hezbollah and his rival, the Maronite Christian politician Samir Geagea, and reinstated the then leading Sunni politician Saad al-Hariri as prime minister. In the six years that followed, the Lebanese army, with the help of Hezbollah, fought Islamist militants on the Syrian border in 2017, a new electoral law was passed in 2018, and leading energy companies began exploratory drilling in offshore blocks in 2020. In his last week in office, he signed the US-brokered agreement establishing Lebanon's southern maritime border with Israel. Follow Global Economic Developments on Social Media! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Facebook account! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Instagram account! Click here to follow Ieconomy official Twitter account!