Assem Qanso - Political Career

Political Career

Qanso joined the Lebanese Ba'ath in 1953. During the Lebanese war, the Lebanese Ba'ath was divided into two hostile groups: a pro-Iraqi group and a pro-Syrian group. Qanso is staunchly pro-Syrian.

Relations between the Kataeb Party and the Ba'ath Party improved, when on the orders of Karim Pakradouni (the leader of the Kataeb Party) and Qanso agreed to establish a committee between the two parties to discuss Lebanese and Arab politics. Relations improved further when the Syrian Ba'athist government increased its contacts with the Kataeb Party. During the Lebanese civil war, the Lebanese parliament formed the National Dialogue Committee in 1975; Qanso was a National Dialogue Committee representative. Qanso opposed the notion that the resignation of Suleiman Frangieh, the President of Lebanon, would end the conflict.

Following the death of Hafez al-Assad in 2000, notable figures such as Abdul Halim Khaddam and Ghazi Kanaan, supported Rafic Hariri against Émile Lahoud, the then sitting President of Lebanon, during the 2000 general election. Qanso supported Khaddam and Kanaan's position, and declared during a parliamentary session "there is no zaim but Rafik Hariri." On a later occasion, he stated "It was a message to Lahoud that, if he tried to break Hariri, Kanaan would break Lahoud." He later changed his position, and supported to extend Lahoud's mandate, and Qanso began criticising the opposition. Qanso, then Minister of Labour, told Walid Jumblatt "You will be crucified above the garbage dump of history as a symbol of your ungratefulness, of your back-stabbing" and warned Jumblat that "you are not out of reach of our militants" and called him a "foreign spy". Jumblat replied by stating it was the Ba'ath Party which had ordered the assassination of his father, Kamal Jumblatt. The Ba'ath Party replied by filling a lawsuit against Jumblatt.