Kataeb Party political bureau member and former minister Alain Hakim said Lebanon has entered a decisive phase of state-building with the election of President Joseph Aoun and the formation of Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s government, framing the moment as a transition from what he described as years of “non-statehood” toward a sovereign and functional state.

In remarks to Al-Anbaa newspaper, Hakim said the new political phase marks the beginning of a battle to dismantle the legacy of war, chaos and parallel authority that allowed a “mini-state” to dominate both the executive and legislative branches, monopolize the decision of war and peace, and control Lebanon’s fate.

Hakim said the path forward rests on a sovereign national framework based on the exclusive right of the State to bear arms, alongside a comprehensive reform process. He noted that the broad outlines of this approach were laid out in both President Aoun’s inaugural speech and the government’s ministerial statement.

He acknowledged that efforts to implement the government’s decisions of August 5 and 7 — which called for placing all weapons under State authority and extending legitimacy across all Lebanese territory — continue to progress slowly. Hakim accused opponents of falsely invoking sectarian concerns in an attempt to block the move, but said President Aoun and the government were handling the situation with restraint and foresight.

According to Hakim, the president is carefully calibrating his positions to prevent Lebanon from sliding into instability that some parties, he said, are deliberately seeking in order to preserve their weapons and their regional, Iranian-backed role.

Hakim also addressed President Aoun’s recent remarks from Bkirki on the sidelines of the Christmas Mass, in which he said the decision to withdraw weapons had been taken and that implementation would depend on circumstances. Hakim stressed that the comments should not be interpreted as a delay, freeze, or retreat from the army’s mission north and south of the Litani River.

Rather, he said, the statement confirmed that there would be no reversal of the decision, but instead a steady and determined effort to implement it amid internal political complexities and shifting regional dynamics. Hakim said the process would rely on the constitutional powers of the presidency and State institutions, particularly the Lebanese Army, to reach practical sovereign solutions that would restore public order, reassert the State’s monopoly on arms, and rehabilitate Lebanon’s standing regionally and internationally. He added that this trajectory would ultimately pave the way for a return to the March 23, 1949 armistice agreement between Lebanon and Israel.

Hakim accused the Shiite Amal-Hezbollah duo led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri of attempting to marginalize the expatriate vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections; a vote, Hakim said, that is a vital economic, demographic and moral force.

Hakim stressed that Lebanese expatriates had played a crucial role over the past six years in cushioning the country’s financial collapse by increasing hard-currency remittances, and warned that denying them the right to vote for all 128 parliamentary seats would violate Article 7 of the Constitution, which enshrines absolute equality among citizens. He further argued that restricting expatriate voting rights serves to preserve existing parliamentary balances and forms part of broader efforts to delay electoral accountability.

Hakim concluded by calling on Parliament to assume its constitutional responsibilities, saying President Aoun had made the point “clearly and unambiguously.” He accused Berri of manipulating Parliament’s internal regulations to serve narrow political interests by refusing to place on the legislative agenda a government-backed draft law to amend the electoral law and grant expatriates voting rights equal to those of resident Lebanese.