October 2, 2026
New dimensions of the rift between Baabda and the suburb against the backdrop of the anniversary of Nasrallah’s assassination
The second anniversary of the assassination of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah marked a radical shift in the nature of the relationship between Baabda Palace and the southern suburb, transcending the traditional political dispute to take on personal dimensions that almost amounted to a complete rupture, according to press reports.
This escalation came against the backdrop of the issuance of indirect directives from the President of the Republic, through his circles, advising security and military officials, politicians and official employees not to participate in the anniversary activities. These directives, according to Baabda’s official account, represented a measure consistent with the decisions of the Council of Ministers, which considered the party’s military wing to be included in them, considering that the participation of official officials in a celebration that carried military implications would put the state in clear contradiction with its decisions.
On the other hand, the scenes behind the scene revealed other dimensions related to the mechanism of sending invitations. The party’s official invitations, which were conveyed via sealed envelopes, were limited to some administrative, security, and military officials, with the exception of the President of the Republic, Joseph Aoun, who was completely ignored. Aoun considered this neglect an insult to the head of state, which prompted him to issue a ban circular. In this context, criticism was directed at both parties. The party was accused of giving the president an excuse by excluding him from invitations, while the president was held responsible for giving priority to personal approaches over considerations of his official position, which is supposed to contain all Lebanese components and manage differences, not inflame them.
The circle of crisis has expanded to form a kind of “political sanctuary” around the party within state institutions, as communicating with it or participating in its events requires official justification, which raises serious questions about the feasibility of repeated proposals regarding dialogue. Despite subsequent interventions to contain the crisis, which saw some party security officials resume their contacts with the leaders of the military services who were absent from attendance, the political stalemate remained the prevailing situation.
On the political level, a remarkable position was recorded by the Secretary-General of the party, Sheikh Naeem Qassem, in which he announced his readiness to discuss the file of arms exclusivity under specific conditions, most notably achieving progress in the file of the Israeli occupation. This position also came in direct response to the calls for dialogue launched by Representative Alain Aoun from Baabda Palace, where the party stipulated in order to meet these calls that an official and announced invitation be issued by the President of the Republic, and a retraction of the government decisions issued on August 5 and 7, 2025 and March 2, 2026. It should be noted that mediation carried out by the Director General of Public Security, Major General Hassan Choucair, collided with Baabda’s refusal to what it described as “dictating conditions,” so it stopped. Official communication following the signing of the “Framework Agreement” at the end of last June.
The complexities of the scene are embodied in the differences in visions about negotiation mechanisms. While President Aoun prefers to communicate through specific names, such as MP Mohamed Raad, the party refuses to impose its negotiators by other parties. In practice, both parties are adopting a strategy of buying time, as the President of the Republic is betting on internal and regional pressures to push the party towards a settlement regarding its weapons, while the party awaits regional transformations and the Iranian position.
Regarding the essence of the dialogue process, the party believes that the president’s efforts are primarily aimed at disabling the weapons of resistance. This is theoretically consistent with Aoun’s tendencies, who does not hide his efforts to end the presence of illegal armed groups and limit the decision to make peace and war with the state’s army alone. Aoun presented this approach during his visit to Washington last July, envisioning it as a long path based on the marriage between politics, economics, and reconstruction, to reach a formula that freezes the actual use of weapons and gradually places it under the authority of the state. It is a vision that comes close in some of its provisions to ideas previously presented by the Egyptian mediator, and it is likely that it was met or will be met with rejection by the party.
