Global Courant 2023-05-25 22:17:29
After stepping down at the age of 73, Walid Jumblatt is calling for elections to elect the next leader of the Progressive Socialist Party.
Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt steps down as leader of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) after 46 years.
Jumblatt, 73, has called for a June 25 party conference to choose his successor, Lebanese state news agency NNA reported Thursday.
He took over as head of the left-wing PSP in 1977 after the assassination of his father Kamal Jumblatt, two years into Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, by suspected Syrian agents.
The PSP traditionally fought for secular rule and was one of the core groups supporting the Palestinian resistance, along with the Lebanese Communist Party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and others on the left.
But the party’s secular base collapsed after Jumblatt took the reins and Druze citizens turned to him for weapons to defend themselves during the war. The Druze are a minority religious sect present in Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories and Israel.
Jumblatt was one of the leaders of the 2005 Cedar Revolution, a movement sparked by the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, the former prime minister. For many years he led efforts to free Lebanon from Syrian influence and was an outspoken critic of the Syrian government.
Like most Lebanese, the Druze are deeply divided over the war in neighboring Syria. Some support the government of President Bashar al-Assad and others join the opposition.
In October 2019, as people across Lebanon took to the streets to call for an end to the entire political and economic power structure that has governed the country since the end of the conflict in 1990, he helped mobilize civilian efforts, but he was also widely criticized for being purely performative.
The economic collapse that year saw the Lebanese pound lose more than 90 percent of its value, and the ruling class—widely blamed—failed to stop the currency’s free fall. In March 2020, the crisis culminated in the country’s first bankruptcy.
Lebanon has had no president since the resignation of Michel Aoun in October 2022 and has also been governed by a caretaker cabinet since last year.
PSP supporters believe a young successor will provide another chance to uphold the interests of the party, which holds eight seats in the 128-member parliament. Jumblatt’s eldest son, Taymour, 41, is widely expected to replace him.
