Béchara el-Khoury

This article is about the politician. For the Lebanese-French composer Bechara El-Khoury see under Bechara El-Khoury .

Béchara el-Khoury

Syrian-Lebanese Summit July 1949. From left: Muhsin al-Barazi , Husni az-Za'im , Riad as-Solh and el-Khoury

Béchara El-Khoury ( Arabic بشارة الخوري Bishāra al-Chūrī , DMG Bišāra al-Ḫūrī ; * August 10, 1890 in Beirut ; † January 11, 1964 ibid) was the first President of Lebanon . He was in office from September 21, 1943 to September 18, 1952 (with a one-day break on November 22, 1943). He was previously Lebanese Prime Minister twice, from May 5, 1927 to August 10, 1928 and then from May 9 to October 11, 1929.

Life

Khoury was born in 1890 as a subject of the Ottoman Sultan. When World War I ended, he was 28 years old. After the First World War , the victorious powers France and Great Britain, contrary to previous assurances, brought the collapsed Ottoman Empire under their rule and secured this through several League of Nations mandates. Khoury was an undergraduate lawyer and founded the ad Dustour party . As an Arab nationalist , he vehemently rejected the French League of Nations mandate for Syria and Lebanon and strove for independence for his country. On November 11, 1943, he was imprisoned in the Raschaya Tower by troops from unoccupied Vichy France , together with Riad as-Solh (the Lebanese Prime Minister at the time ), Pierre Gemayel , Camille Chamoun and a few other personalities who supported Lebanese politics after independence should dominate.

Massive demonstrations forced the French troops to release the detainees on November 22, 1943. The day is celebrated as Independence Day to this day.

Khoury was instrumental in the creation of the National Pact, an agreement between Christian and Muslim leaders of Lebanon, which still forms the basis of today's constitutional structure of the country. This agreement was not enshrined in the constitution of Lebanon until the Taif Agreement in 1989 and was in effect essentially until the beginning of the civil war in 1975. In the pact, Christians accepted and agreed to the inclusion of Lebanon in the Arab League , not protection France , while the Muslims accepted the Lebanese state within its borders at the time and promised not to demand unification with neighboring Syria . Based on the 1932 census, the pact distributed the seats in the Lebanese National Assembly in a ratio of six Christians to five Muslims - regardless of the actual population development. This ratio was changed to 50:50 with the 1989 Taif Agreement. Most significant is the assignment of the three most important constitutional institutions - president, prime minister and parliamentary speaker - to the Maronites , Sunnis and Shiites , the three largest denominations in Lebanon.

Khoury's years in office were accompanied by great economic growth, but the Palestinian War of 1948 , in which Lebanon fought alongside the Arabs against Israel, weighed on the Lebanese economy with the financial costs and several hundred thousand Palestinian refugees . These factors, and the suspicion of corruption in Khoury's government, sparked mass protests that forced him to resign on September 18, 1952. His successor was Camille Chamoun , although Fuad Schihab initially led the office for a short time.

Fonts

• Essai on the theory of preuves en droit musulman. Aperçu de droit comparé avec la législation française. Beyrouth 1926.

literature

• Joseph G. Chami: Le mandat Béchara el Khoury. 1943-1952 . Chemaly & Chemaly, Beyrouth 2002
• Beshara el Khuri , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 05/1964 from January 20, 1964, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

predecessor	Office	successor
Auguste Adib Pacha	Prime Minister of Lebanon May 5, 1927-10. August 1928	Habib Pacha es-Saad
Habib Pacha es-Saad	Prime Minister of Lebanon May 9–11. October 1929	Émile Eddé
Petro Trad	President of Lebanon September 21, 1943	Émile Eddé
Émile Eddé	President of Lebanon September 23, 1943-19. September 1952	Fuad Schihab (executive)