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Michel Aoun: Lebanon’s popular yet divisive new president

A worker hangs a billboard showing Christian leader Michel Aoun with Arabic that reads "For all Lebanon," in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016. Aoun, an 81-year-old veteran Christian politician, is set to be elected by Parliament on Monday as part of a political deal that's expected to be another boost for President Bashar Assad in neighboring Syria. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
A worker hangs a billboard showing Christian leader Michel Aoun with Arabic that reads "For all Lebanon," in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016. Aoun, an 81-year-old veteran Christian politician, is set to be elected by Parliament on Monday as part of a political deal that's expected to be another boost for President Bashar Assad in neighboring Syria. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari) A worker hangs a billboard showing Christian leader Michel Aoun with Arabic that reads "For all Lebanon," in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 30, 2016. Aoun, an 81-year-old veteran Christian politician, is set to be elected by Parliament on Monday as part of a political deal that's expected to be another boost for President Bashar Assad in neighboring Syria. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

By Associated Press 5 min read

BEIRUT (AP) – Michel Aoun, Lebanon’s strong-willed Christian leader, has waited more than three decades for the chance to become president.

On Monday, the 81-year-old politician finally fulfilled his ambition, becoming the country’s 13th head of state after he was voted in by a majority in parliament.

A former army commander known affectionately by his many supporters as “the General,” Aoun led his forces through some of the deadliest battles of Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war and has repeatedly shifted alliances to survive the country’s notoriously thorny politics – briefly rising to become prime minister in 1988.

In 1990, Syrian troops forced an embattled Aoun from Lebanon’s Baabda palace and pushed him into exile in France, where he remained for 14 years. Now, he returns triumphantly to the presidential palace.

“I have come from a long history of struggle full of sacrifices, especially in the military establishment,” Aoun said in a speech shortly after he was elected. “I hope that we will guarantee the stability that the Lebanese hope for.”