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Lebanon’s Geagea Voices Support for Army Commander’s Presidential Nomination

Commander of the Lebanese Army General Joseph Aoun. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Commander of the Lebanese Army General Joseph Aoun. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Lebanon’s Geagea Voices Support for Army Commander’s Presidential Nomination

Commander of the Lebanese Army General Joseph Aoun. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Commander of the Lebanese Army General Joseph Aoun. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Head of the Lebanese Forces party Samir Geagea voiced his support on Saturday for Army Commander General Joseph Aoun’s possible presidential nomination if “it turns out that his chances are high.”

He said that discussions in this regard have begun among opposition parties, noting that there are more than 30 different parties which makes the communication process time-consuming.

“He has run the military institution in a good way and has improved it and acted as a real statesman at its head,” he said in comments about the army chief Aoun.

“Despite pressures from the most senior officials, he did not accept to prevent the army from performing its missions -- mainly preserving the border and domestic security,” Geagea added.

“I don’t know what General Aoun’s chances to reach the palace are, and I hope they will be good chances, because as he succeeded in his minor role, he can also succeed in this major role,” the Lebanese Forces leader added.

“If it turns out that his chances are high, we will certainly support him,” he went on to say.

Geagea, who considered the presidential elections “pivotal,” told the Al-Markaziya news agency that only people who can save Lebanon should be elected.

The LF head stressed that the upcoming president must be a reformist, and sovereign and should believe in the republic and the constitution. He affirmed that many figures in Lebanon enjoy these qualities.

As for his own nomination, Geagea said his party and its parliamentary bloc are still studying this possibility.

In remarks about Hezbollah’s launching of drones towards Karish gas field in the Mediterranean earlier this month, Geagea said the group’s Secretary-General, Hassan Nasrallah, escalated activities because US President Joe Biden was visiting the region.

"Iran wanted, through Nasrallah, to inform Biden that it is capable of deteriorating the situation through its regional arms," Geagea stated.

He also said Hezbollah wanted to emphasize it is still a “resistance” and its weapons still have a function.

Geagea further stressed that Nasrallah wanted to pre-empt the expected positive breakthrough in the US-sponsored maritime border demarcation negotiations with Israel and attribute it to his group.

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Cash Crunch Leaves Syrians Queueing for Hours to Collect Salaries

Syrian civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs, and withdrawals are capped. LOUAI BESHARA / AFP
Syrian civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs, and withdrawals are capped. LOUAI BESHARA / AFP
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Cash Crunch Leaves Syrians Queueing for Hours to Collect Salaries

Syrian civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs, and withdrawals are capped. LOUAI BESHARA / AFP
Syrian civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs, and withdrawals are capped. LOUAI BESHARA / AFP

Seated on the pavement outside a bank in central Damascus, Abu Fares's face is worn with exhaustion as he waits to collect a small portion of his pension.
"I've been here for four hours and I haven't so much as touched my pension," said the 77-year-old, who did not wish to give his full name.

"The cash dispensers are under-stocked and the queues are long," he continued.

Since the overthrow of president Bashar al-Assad last December, Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception.

Decades of punishing sanctions imposed on the Assad dynasty -- which the new authorities are seeking to have lifted -- have left about 90 percent of Syrians under the poverty line, according to the United Nations.

The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet.

Prior to his ousting, Assad's key ally Russia held a monopoly on printing banknotes. The new authorities have only announced once that they have received a shipment of banknotes from Moscow since Assad's overthrow.
In a country with about 1.25 million public sector employees, civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs to make withdrawals, capped at about 200,000 Syrian pounds, the equivalent on the black market of $20 per day.

In some cases, they have to take a day off just to wait for the cash.

"There are sick people, elderly... we can't continue like this," said Abu Fares.

'Meagre sums'
"There is a clear lack of cash, and for that reason we deactivate the ATMs at the end of the workday," an employee at a private bank told AFP, preferring not to give her name.

A haphazard queue of about 300 people stretches outside the Commercial Bank of Syria. Some are sitting on the ground.

Afraa Jumaa, a civil servant, said she spends most of the money she withdraws on the travel fare to get to and from the bank.

"The conditions are difficult and we need to withdraw our salaries as quickly as possible," said the 43-year-old.
"It's not acceptable that we have to spend days to withdraw meagre sums."

The local currency has plunged in value since the civil war erupted in 2011, prior to which the dollar was valued at 50 pounds.

Economist Georges Khouzam explained that foreign exchange vendors -- whose work was outlawed under Assad -- "deliberately reduced cash flows in Syrian pounds to provoke rapid fluctuations in the market and turn a profit".

Muntaha Abbas, a 37-year-old civil servant, had to return three times to withdraw her entire salary of 500,000 pounds.

"There are a lot of ATMs in Damascus, but very few of them work," she said.

After a five-hour wait, she was finally able to withdraw 200,000 pounds.

"Queues and more queues... our lives have become a series of queues," she lamented.