THE AOUN-MURR DIVORCE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
Elias Harfoush

Dar Al-Hayat
April 21 2008
Lebanon

Deputy Michel Murr’s withdrawal from the Change and Reform Bloc is not
another October 13 for General Michel Aoun. At least not yet. Still, it
is a decision that sets the stage for huge consequences for the Rabieh
leader and his movement that stands in the way of electing General
Michel Suleiman as president of the republic outside the "basket of
solutions," the expression coined by Hezbollah and adopted by Aoun
among everything else that he endorsed in his famous "understanding"
with Hezbollah.

The first consequence lies in the impact of Murr’s step on the
Christian street whose sole leadership Aoun had long claimed despite
his claim to be non-sectarian. He has even had no qualms about
describing himself as the political patriarch of the Maronites. It is
no easy matter for an Orthodox leader to stand up and defend the top
Maronite position in the state, while Maronite MPs under Aoun’s banner
fail to fulfill their electoral duty and at the same time demand the
return of "wasted" Christian rights, as their repeated statements say.

The wider impact of Murr’s call is now represented by the active
popular movement in various areas where Aoun once bragged about his
mass support, areas such as Keserwan, Jbeil, Zahleh, and all the way
to Metn. While each region has its own electoral calculations, they
all flow into one channel, as they exert popular pressure on their
political representatives who have abused their political will and
interests and associated them with irrelevant foreign parties.

All this leads to a much more significant implication in Murr’s "coup"
inside the area of Metn itself where his family enjoys deeply rooted
influence. The former minister is commendable for expressing his
"regrets" for supporting Aoun’s candidate in the by-election against
President Amine Gemayel to fill the parliamentary seat left vacant
following the assassination of Gemayel’s young son, Minister Pierre
Gemayel. It may be early to talk about the potential extent reachable
by Murr’s stance or its implications on the alliances in Metn. But
one can safely claim that this change will not be in Aoun’s favor,
an outsider in the area, especially that it was Murr’s base and the
Armenian voices that tipped the balance to ensure his victory in the
last elections.

In addition, Deputy Michel Murr’s stance represents a pressuring
factor that supports General Michel Suleiman, as it helps rally a
significant Christian base behind him, a base that any president
must earn as a prerequisite to bigger national support. In doing so,
Murr puts himself as the primary engine driving Suleiman’s wheels to
Baabda Palace, which in turn allows him to be the "godfather" of the
new era if the election takes place. This will enable him to snap an
important card out of Aoun’s hands since the latter had occasionally
said that the army commander remains his true candidate if he himself
could not become president.

In addition to all these implications, the Aoun-Murr divorce
has also revealed Aoun’s fragility and lightweight insofar as
his "understanding" with Hezbollah is concerned. Forget about
the "interest" which this alliance could not provide for Aoun’s
assumed base, whether on the pure sectarian level or on the national
level. More importantly, at the time when Hezbollah was able to take
its popular base to this "understanding," since it is capable of
taking its base to any understanding it wants anyway, Aoun’s position
vis-a-vis this understanding has continuously demanded repeated
justification on a daily basis, mainly because the understanding was
alien to Aoun’s base and its background and equally alien to Aoun’s
famous "precedents" in defending sovereignty and independence,
"precedents" that once flirted with the dreams of many who truly
believed that he was the "hero" of both slogans.