Free patriotic movement

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Courant patriotique libre
Free patriotic movement
Free patriotic movement
Party leader Gebran Bassil
founding 2003
officially declared 2005
Headquarters Rabieh - Beirut
Alignment Middle
secular
populist
Parliament seats 19 of 128
Website www.tayyar.org

The Free Patriotic Movement (abbreviation FPB; Arabic التيار الوطني الحر at-Tayyār al-waṭanī al-ḥurr ; French Courant patriotique libre , CPL ), also known as the “Aoun Movement” (at-Tayyār al-ʿAunī) or “Aoun Party”, is a political party in Lebanon . The party's supporters are mostly recruited from the Christian population of Lebanon.

It has been led since 2003 by General Michel Aoun , a former commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces who was Prime Minister of one of the country's two rival governments from 1988 to 1990 . The movement was officially declared a political party on September 18, 2005.

The party takes a line of secularism and advocates the right to vote for Lebanese living abroad as well as a political and economic program to rebuild Lebanon's economy and extend the authority of the Lebanese government over the entire national territory.

The FPB is a key part of the March 8 Alliance , which also includes the Shiite parties Hezbollah and Amal .

history

Aoun led the FPB for many years from his exile in Paris . He returned to Lebanon on May 7, 2005 and participated in the parliamentary elections in May and June 2005 . The Free Patriotic Movement and its allies won 21 seats in the 128-member National Assembly .

On February 6, 2006, the FPB signed a memorandum with the Shiite Hezbollah . In it, both sides agreed, among other things, to disarm Hezbollah, depending on the solution to the problem of the Shebaa farms ; these are occupied by Israel and generally recognized internationally as belonging to Syria , but are declared in the memorandum on Lebanese territory. The agreement also addresses the importance of normal relations with Syria and the release and repatriation of all political prisoners in Syria and Israel to Lebanon. This alliance is remarkable in that Aoun has had an anti-Syrian stance since the “war of liberation” against Syria, while Hezbollah is considered Syria's most important ally in Lebanon.

The government of Fouad Siniora , in which the Sunni-influenced, anti-Syrian (and pro-Western) future movement of Saad Hariri dominated, went on a confrontation course with this alliance of FPB and Hezbollah and tried to remove it from its positions of power. The implacable stance of both blocs resulted in a stalemate and a blockade. Parliament no longer met, neither of the two camps was able to push through its candidate to succeed President Émile Lahoud , whose term of office ended in November 2007. At least 81 people died in armed clashes, and Lebanon was seen on the brink of renewed civil war. Finally, in May 2008, through the mediation of Qatar, the rival camps agreed in the Doha Agreement to form a government of national unity. The FPB was represented in it by a Vice Prime Minister and two other ministers.

In the parliamentary elections in July 2009, the party took part in the March 8 alliance , which, in contrast to the rival March 14 alliance, is described as pro-Syrian and anti-Western. Her main partners were the Shiite parties Hezbollah and Amal. With 18 seats, the Aounists became the second strongest individual party in parliament, but the election winner was the Alliance of March 14, led by the future movement and Saad Hariri . The FPB then formed the largest opposition faction, and its “block of change and reform” also included smaller parties such as the Lebanese Democratic Party , Marada and the Lebanese section of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Taschnag).

Hariri again formed a coalition of national unity, in which the FPB was involved with three cabinet posts, including Charbel Nahas as communications minister. In January 2011, however, Hezbollah and the Aoun party withdrew their ministers from the government in protest of the UN tribunal's investigation into the murder of Saad's father, Rafik Hariri . After the Progressive Socialist Party of the Druze Walid Jumblat switched sides, Hariri's government finally broke up and the parties of the alliance of March 8, reinforced by the defectors, formed a government under Najib Mikati in June 2011 . In it, the FPB provided seven ministers, including those for labor (Charbel Nahas) and telecommunications ( Nicolas Sehnaoui ). In March 2013, Mikati resigned to make way for a national unity government under Tammam Salam .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Imad Salamey: The Government and Politics of Lebanon. Routledge, Abingdon / New York 2014, p. 212.
  2. ↑ Lebanon after the war: Hezbollah's new offensive. In: The Economist , September 14, 2006.
  3. ↑ Talal Atrissi: Political Islam in Lebanon. In: Political Islam and European Foreign Policy. Center for European Policy Studies, Brussels 2007, p. 90.
  4. ↑ Salamey: The Government and Politics of Lebanon. 2014, p. 122.
  5. ↑ Thomas Gebhard: Quo vadis Lebanon? Special political report, Hanns Seidel Foundation, January 2011, p. 2.
  6. ^ Daniel Mützel: Lebanese Clientelism. In: Blätter für deutsche und Internationale Politik, Volume 53 (2008), No. 7, p. 26.
  7. ↑ Lebanon: Roads blocked. Zeit Online, January 23, 2007.
  8. ↑ a b Mensudin Dulic: The crises in the Middle East as a focus of world peace. Lit Verlag, Berlin 2012, p. 139.
  9. ↑ Country information Lebanon , website of the Federal Foreign Office, as of April 2013.
  10. ↑ Daniel Corstange: Lebanon. In: International Security and the United States. Praeger, Westport CT 2008, p. 430.
  11. ^ Eva Dingel: Lebanon. The Doha Agreement. SWP-Aktuell, No. 47, Science and Politics Foundation, June 2008.
  12. ↑ Lebanon: Hezbollah bursts government Spiegel Online, January 12, 2011.
  13. ↑ Dulic: The crises in the Middle East as a focus of world peace. 2012, p. 143.
  14. ↑ Seif al-Shishaskli: Fireworks for a new cabinet. taz.de, June 15, 2011.