Suleiman Frangieh

Suleiman Kabalan Frangieh, last name also spelled Frangié, Franjieh, or Franjiyeh (15 June 1910 - 23 July 1992) (Arabic: سليمان فرنجية‎), was President of Lebanon from 1970 to 1976. During his presidency, the Palestinian-Lebanese war erupted that eventually transformed into a civil war, which raged from 1975 to 1990.

Beginnings

Suleiman Frangieh was a scion of one of the leading Maronite families of Zgharta, near Tripoli; the family's name comes from the Greek Φρὰγκοι (pron. "Franggi"), after the Franks.

Frangieh was the second son of a politician, Kabalan Suleiman Frangieh and his mother was Lamia Raffoul. Kabalan Frangieh was a member of Parliament and his grandfather, a District Governor in the North.

Frangieh had five children with his Egyptian-born wife, Iris Handaly. Suleiman Frangieh took over the Parliament seat in 1958 from his brother Hamid Frangieh, after the latter became ill. In June 1978, Suleiman Frangieh's son Tony Frangieh, himself a Member of Parliament, was assassinated together with his wife and infant daughter. Suleiman Frangieh, Jr., the son of the murdered MP, was elected as Member of Parliament and eventually became a Minister of Health.

The presidential election of 1970

In the closest and possibly most controversial presidential election in Lebanese history, the National Assembly elected Frangieh to the Presidency of the Republic on August 17, 1970. He owed his upset victory over Elias Sarkis, the official candidate of the Chehabi regime to a last minute change of mind by Kamal Jumblatt, whose supporters in the Parliament switched their votes to Frangieh.

Posing as a consensus candidate, Frangieh drew support from both the right and the left and from all religious factions; his election was a backlash to the administrations of Presidents of Fuad Chehab (1958–1964) and Charles Helou (1964–1970) and the "Deuxième Bureau" (Arabic: المكتب الثاني‎) run by the preceding two administrations of Chehab and Helou, as the opposing candidate Elias Sarkis who was head of the Banque du Liban (Central Bank of Lebanon) was widely seen as a continuation of the earlier Chehabi regime.

There were three rounds of elections that year:
Round 1 - 99 Deputies, 5 candidates - no majority
Round 2 - 99 Deputies, 2 candidates - 50 votes each (1 fake vote found), round was negated.
Round 3 - 99 Deputies, 2 candidates, Kamal Jumblatt assigns one of his deputies to vote for Frangieh. Suleiman Frangieh becomes President legally. The events listed above as per the testimony of the late Kamal Joumblatt of his role in the vote.

Sabri Hamadeh, then Speaker of Parliament, had refused to announce the election of a President on a 1-vote difference. As Hamadeh exited parliament Michel Sassine, Deputy Speaker of Parliament, stepped up and exercized his powers of Deputy to announce Frangieh President.[1] (See two additional pictures of Sassine announcing Sleiman Frangieh President:[2], [3])

The civil war years

When the Lebanese Civil War began, Frangieh maintained a militia, the Marada Brigade, under the command of his son Tony Frangieh. He initially participated in the Lebanese Front, a right-wing, mainly Christian, coalition of politicians and militia leaders, but in early 1978 he broke with them because of his own pro-Syrian leanings. In June 1978, Tony, together with his wife and infant daughter, was assassinated by militiamen with Phalangist militia being accused of the plot. Frangieh never vowed revenge for death of his son and his family.

Frangieh remained an ally of Syria. He attempted to make a comeback in 1988, but the National Assembly failed to achieve a quorum owing to a boycott by some Christian parliamentarians enforced by the Lebanese Forces militia. He died on 23 July 1992, two years after the civil war ended.

See also

• List of Presidents of Lebanon