Editor’s note: Ahead of the 2014 presidential election, this is the third in a series of articles examining the circumstances and conditions that shaped the elections of Lebanon’s 12 presidents since 1943.
BEIRUT: Pushed into politics, the former chief of the Lebanese Army Fouad Chehab sought an agenda of social justice for Lebanon’s disenfranchised groups when he was elected president in 1958.
His reformist internal policies drew the ire of the moneyed political class, while citizens throughout the country felt the increasing brawn of the military intelligence branch, the “Second Bureau,” under Chehab’s presidency.
Born to a once-wealthy Maronite family in Ghazir, Chehab joined the military and rose in the ranks throughout the French mandate, finally becoming the commander of the Lebanese Army in 1945 after the country achieved independence.
Under President Camille Chamoun, Chehab earned a reputation as a peacemaker during the 1958 civil conflict, in which he sought to retain order across the country rather than quash the largely Muslim rebelling factions. Chehab defied Chamoun’s orders to occupy militant strongholds in Beirut, according to author Fawwaz Traboulsi in his book “A History of Modern Lebanon.”
The bloody conflict between Chamoun’s largely pro-Western allies and supporters of the pan-Arabist Egyptian President Gamal Abdel-Nasser lasted for three months and ended when Chamoun requested U.S. troops enter Beirut to restore calm.
After this stormy, sectarian chapter in Lebanon, Chehab was elected president on July 31, 1958, with an overwhelming 48 out of 66 Parliamentary votes.
A reformist at heart, Chehab sought to integrate long-marginalized Muslim communities into the public sector. A new electoral law increased the number of parliamentary seats from 66 to 99, with 54 allotted to Christians and 45 going to Muslims.
Distrustful of the corrupt and sectarian political class, Chehab established the Civil Service Board, which administered an examination to hopeful civil servants, ensuring that the public sector was staffed by the most meritorious candidates. Aside from launching several ambitious projects to develop public services in rural areas, Chehab established the National Social Security Fund, declaring that “those who benefitted from prosperity should take care of the deprived Lebanese.”
In 1960, two years after he was elected, Chehab issued a statement of resignation before Parliament, shocking his supporters and opponents alike. Chehab claimed that he had fulfilled the goals he had defined when he assumed the presidency, including stabilizing the economy, calming sectarian tensions and improving relations with other Arab countries.
Privately, however, he told his ally and confident Progressive Socialist Party leader Kamal Jumblatt that he was frustrated by the slow pace of political reforms in the country and the resoluteness of the traditional sectarian leaders to retain power.
“I resigned after realizing that it would be difficult for me to defeat an internal enemy,” Chehab told Jumblatt, according to a book on the Druze leader by Ezzat Safi.
Immediately after his resignation, however, 91 out of 99 deputies signed a petition requesting Chehab withdraw his resignation, which he reluctantly did.
On New Year’s Eve 1961, Syrian Social Nationalist Party members joined by armed militias staged an unsuccessful coup against Chehab’s government. The New York Times described the foiled attempt as a “fiasco involving so few men that it could rather serve as proof of the essential stability of the regime.”
While the incident provoked wide public support for Chehab and the Lebanese Army, critics say that the coup attempt allowed the Second Bureau a carte blanche to crack down on dissent and impose order at a brutal cost.
Thousands of suspected coup sympathizers were arrested and, according to Traboulsi, “torture became a standard practice in detention centers and prisons.”
The Second Bureau’s power continued to expand, ultimately exerting its influence in politics and union activities.
When his term was drawing to an end in 1964, 74 out of 99 MPs signed a petition requesting a constitutional amendment that would allow Chehab to serve for a second term.
Chehab rejected the proposition, however: “I fulfilled my constitutional duty, and I have done what I could to the state and the people under the circumstances and capabilities that you know.”
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