‘76 Lebanon President to Run Again : Franjieh’s Candidacy Triggers Crisis That Could Delay Elections

Suleiman Franjieh, Lebanon’s president when civil war broke out 13 years ago, announced today that he will seek a new term, triggering a political crisis that could delay elections set for this week.

The news that Franjieh, 78, will run was announced on the Voice of Unified Free Lebanon radio station, which he controls. The radio said Franjieh plans to travel from his summer home in Ehden, northern Lebanon, to Muslim West Beirut today to set up campaign headquarters.

Lebanon’s Parliament is scheduled to choose a new president Thursday. President Amin Gemayel’s term expires Sept. 23, and he is constitutionally barred from seeking a second term.

Franjieh, a Maronite Catholic, is Syria’s closest Christian ally in Lebanon and a friend of President Hafez Assad of Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon.

Syrian Troops Remain

Toward the end of his six-year term in 1976, Franjieh formally requested Syrian military intervention to quell Christian-Muslim fighting. Tens of thousands of Syrian troops remain in Lebanon.

Right-wing Christians, including Gemayel, have declared that they will use every possible means to block Franjieh’s election.

Gemayel torpedoed a Syrian-arranged peace treaty between Muslim and Christian militia leaders in 1985, and Syria is expected to want someone more to its liking.

Spokesmen for the Lebanese Forces, the main Christian militia that rules East Beirut and most of the Christian heartland, have said they will block the election of a president imposed by Syria “with political pressure and even military pressure.”

Son’s Family Slaughtered

Franjieh holds the Lebanese Forces’ commander, Samir Geagea, responsible for slaughtering his elder son Tony, Tony’s wife, the couple’s 3-year-old daughter and 30 bodyguards in a raid on the Franjieh mansion in Ehden in 1978.

Only 76 Parliament deputies are eligible to vote in the presidential balloting. A 99-member Parliament was elected in 1972 for a four-year term, but civil war prevented new parliamentary elections, and the body’s mandate has been renewed regularly.

Twenty-two of the original 99 deputies have died, and Gemayel vacated his seat when he was elected president in 1982. Gemayel was elected after his brother, Bashir, was killed in a bombing nine days before he was to be sworn in as president.

This time, there are more than two dozen presidential candidates.

Parliament speaker Hussein Husseini set the required quorum for this year’s presidential election at 53.