Joseph Aoun (President of Lebanon from Jan 2025; former army commander) — inaugural address, 9 Jan 2025 (L'Orient Today): making the state's monopoly on arms the centerpiece — "the state's right to hold a monopoly on weapons, and to invest in the army" — alongside a rule-of-law / anti-corruption vision ("no more mafias… no more immunity for criminals and the corrupt"). The reformist / state-sovereignty pole.

…working to ensure the state's right to hold a monopoly on weapons, and to invest in the army to monitor the borders, maintain their security in the south, define the boundaries in the east, north and at sea.

If we want to build a nation, we must all be under the roof of law and justice, where there will be no more mafias or security islands, no more leaks or money laundering, no more drug trafficking, no more interference in the judicial system, in police stations, no more protections or clientelism, no more immunity for criminals and the corrupt.

[SECOND DOCUMENT for Joseph Aoun — his existing record is an election notice; this captures his actual DECLARED POSITIONS from his inaugural address. Source is English (L'Orient Today's full English text of his 9 January 2025 inaugural speech; L'Orient's translation of his Arabic address); tier-2; confirmed verbatim against the fetched page; the leading "…" marks an excerpt from a longer sentence.] Declared positions of Joseph Aoun — President of Lebanon (elected 9 January 2025, ending a two-year presidential vacuum), the former commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, elected after the 2024 Israel–Hezbollah war as the head of a reformist, sovereigntist order (with PM Nawaf Salam). In his inaugural address, the ex-general made the STATE'S MONOPOLY ON ARMS the centerpiece — a historic pledge widely read as directed at Hezbollah: "…working to ensure the state's right to hold a monopoly on weapons, and to invest in the army to monitor the borders, maintain their security in the south, define the boundaries in the east, north and at sea." He paired it with a sweeping RULE-OF-LAW / ANTI-CORRUPTION vision — "we must all be under the roof of law and justice, where there will be no more mafias… no more protections or clientelism, no more immunity for criminals and the corrupt" — and pledged to build the state's capacity "to eradicate the Israeli occupation and repel its aggressions on all Lebanese territory." This is the LEBANESE REFORMIST / STATE-SOVEREIGNTY pole — the state's exclusive monopoly on legitimate force (vs Hezbollah's parallel arsenal), the rule of law and anti-corruption over confessional clientelism, a strong national army, and sovereignty against Israeli occupation — the presidential counterpart to PM Nawaf Salam's program. [Axes: state-authority / sovereignty (the state's monopoly on arms; the army's exclusive role; ending non-state arsenals), governance / rule of law (anti-corruption; ending clientelism, mafias and impunity; judicial independence), Israel-Lebanon (eradicating Israeli occupation of the south; defending sovereignty), regime-type (a reformist state-building project vs militia power and confessional patronage).]