Lahoud (or Lahud), General Émile Jamil (1936– )

Lebanese Maronite Christian politician, president 1998–2007. A career army officer, Lahoud was appointed commander of the Lebanese army in 1989, and with the backing of Syria's president Hafez Assad, Lahoud was elected president in October 1998. As president, Lahoud's sought to reconcile Christians to a new political order in which the Sunni Muslim prime minister and Shi'a Muslim speaker of the parliament had increased powers. However, within months of his election, Rafik Hariri resigned as prime minister, to be replaced by Salim al-Hoss. Hariri later returned as prime minister 2000–04. In 2004, Lebanon's parliament voted to extend Lahoud's term for an additional three years to November 2007.

Born in Beirut, the son of General Jamil Lahoud, a leader in the independence movement, Lahoud served under General Michel Aoun during the closing years of the Lebanese civil war (1975–90). He became army commander after the dismissal of Aoun in 1989 by President Elias Hrawi. He established greater unity among an armed forces drawn from all of the country's 18 fractious religious sects.