Suleiman Frangieh (15 June 1910-23 July 1992) was President of Lebanon from 22 September 1970 to 22 September 1976, succeeding Charles Helou and preceding Elias Sarkis.
Biography[]
Suleiman Frangieh was born on 15 June 1910 near Tripoli, Lebanon to a family of Catholic Maronites. He was an import-export businessman, and he was accused of having killed 700 people during the 1958 Lebanon crisis; he became friends with Hafez al-Assad and Rifaat al-Assad from Syria, allowing for Syria to have some influence in Lebanon. In 1960, he took over his brother Hamid Beik Frangieh's seat in the National Assembly, and in 1970 he won a controversial presidential election with the Kataeb Party after Kamal Jumblatt switched his vote to Frangieh from Elias Sarkis. In 1975, a civil war broke out between the Maronite-majority government and the Palestine Liberation Organization and Amal Movement Muslim rebels. He left office in 1976 after failing to negotiate a peace between the two parties, and his son Tony Frangieh and his family were killed in the Ehden Massacre in 1978. Frangieh went on to kill hundreds of Kataeb members in response to his son's murder, as he was pro-Syria unlike the Kataeb Party. In 1988, he lost presidential elections, and he died in 1992.