Jihad Azour and Suleiman Frangieh have officially declared their candidacies to be Lebanon's next president and end the seven-month vacuum.
After a five-month hiatus, presidential election sessions will resume on Wednesday. Powerful parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri, leader of the Amal Movement, had refused to schedule sessions until at least two serious candidates emerged. In the 11 previous sessions, no person had come anywhere near to reaching the required vote threshold.
It was no secret that Mr Azour and Mr Frangieh were the candidates of key factions within the 128-seat parliament.
Mr Frangieh, the scion of a prominent north Lebanon family and a close friend of Syria's President Bashar Al Assad, has been backed by the powerful Iran-backed armed group and political party Hezbollah and its Shiite ally Amal. But only a small amount of Christian MPs are expected to back him, including his son Tony.
In Lebanon's confessional system, the role of president is reserved for a Maronite Christian.
Mr Azour is backed by Lebanon's largest Christian parties, some of which are traditionally rivals. But they have found a “convergence” around Mr Azour, in their bid to block Mr Frangieh's candidacy.
Officially announcing his candidacy on Monday, Mr Azour – normally a senior official at the International Monetary Fund, although he has taken a leave of absence to avoid accusations of conflict of interest – insisted he was not a “challenge” candidate.
Supporters of Mr Azour say he is not a confrontational candidate, even though Hezbollah insists he is.
The IMF official said in a statement that he wanted to be a candidate of “hope”, especially given how bitterly divided Lebanon is and the economic crisis from which it is suffering, and that he did not descend from an “old political family”.
Announcing his candidacy on Sunday, Mr Frangieh said nothing united his rivals and all they sought to do was boycott him. This argument was repeated on Monday by Mohammad Raad, Hezbollah's parliamentary leader, who said Mr Azour's supporters had backed “a candidate they do not want to see for the presidency of the republic”.
“They only use it to prevent the candidate of [Hezbollah and its allies] to reach this post,” he added.
Mr Frangieh also on Sunday called for dialogue and insisted he did not seek to impose his candidacy on anyone.
But Mr Frangieh, whose grandfather Suleiman was president from 1970-1976, also hit out at his rivals. He said some claimed to want a candidate outside of the ruling classes of Lebanon but instead had backed someone from the heart of the traditional system. Mr Azour was Lebanon's finance minister from 2005-2008.
Mr Frangieh's official declaration was made as he marked the 1978 Ehden massacre, when rival Christian-led fighters attacked the Frangieh home. It led to the death of his parents, his three-year-old sister Jihane and fighters from the Frangieh-led Marada Movement. Some of those political parties opposed to Mr Frangieh's candidacy trace their roots to the militia that attacked his family home.
Announcing his party's support for Mr Frangieh in March, Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah said he was “the natural candidate”. He added that Hezbollah did not want a person who would stab the group “in the back”.
A source within the Amal Movement had also told The National that Mr Frangieh, also a former minister, had the right amount of experience of Lebanese politics.
“He has history, he is respected, he has weight in the Christian community. He has good relations with all Christian communities. He has good relations with Arab countries.”
Backers of Mr Azour point to his role at the IMF, his economic knowledge and his apparent lack of links to corruption.
“He has a deep knowledge of how to get countries in crisis like Lebanon get out of [their] situation,” said Samy Gemayel, leader of the Kataeb Party, a backer of Mr Azour.
“He has the political contacts on the international level, with the West, the US, the IMF, the Europeans. So he has experience on this level,” Mr Gemayel told The National.
“And more than that, he has experience, is someone who held different official positions in the state, and I think that he has good relations with everyone.”
