Beshir Gemayel, leader of Lebanon's strongest militia and the youngest president in its history, is the nation's leading law-and-order advocate -- a pistol-packing Maronite Christian loved by few but feared and respected by many.
A 34-year-old lawyer, Gemayel pays lip service to Moslem-Christian cooperation and ending Israel's occupation of Lebanon.
But many fear his election will prolong the presence of the Israelis -- who armed his militia in the 1975-76 civil war -- and lead to bitter new fighting between Moslems and his Christian Phalange forces.
Gemayel's father, Pierre, founded the Kataeb, or Phalange party, after a visit to Nazi Germany.
His son, a short, stocky man with a high-pitched voice, joined the party's militia at age 11 and became its commander during the civil war. He took a personal hand in some of the most bloody fighting of the war, including the massacre of up to 1,200 people in Beirut's sprawling Qarantina slum.
After the civil war split Beirut between Christian east and Moslem west Beirut, the 20,000-strong Lebanese Forces enforced a state-within-a-state in east Beirut, with their own policing, tax collection, municipal government, radio and television stations.
Under Gemayel, the 'Lebanese Forces' as his troops are known ended in east Beirut the anarchy and lawlessness of the western sector. Critics charged his methods were undemocratic but they admitted the use of force worked.
Opposition was frowned upon. In 1978, after former President Suleiman Franjieh withdrew support from the Lebanese Front coalition of Christian leaders, Phalangist militiamen attacked the home of his son Tony, killing him, his wife, child and 32 supporters.
Gemayel termed the assassinations a 'social revolt against feudalism.'
Married with one daughter, Gemayel has himself escaped two assassination attempts. The second, a car bomb attack in 1980, killed his baby daughter and three bodyguards.
Moslem distrust of Gemayel deepened after Israeli troops invaded Lebanon June 6, in what Gemayel called a 'surgical operation' to excise the PLO, and was welcomed by the Lebanese Forces.
Embarrassed by the arrival of Israeli troops on his doorstep in east Beirut, Gemayel denied any collusion with Israel and insisted: 'The Israelis are fighting for their own reasons, not for my pretty eyes.'
One Phalangist source said at the time that Gemayel had forewarning of the invasion but was told it would stop well south of Beirut.
Gemayel's campaign platform during the invasion stressed a strong central government and national army, the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon and national independence.
In a speech to party militants, he lashed out at the 'old Lebanon,' attacking 'corrupt magistrates, officers whose sole concern is wearing medals and parading, weak ministers and weak presidents.'
He said it was 'premature' to discuss signing a peace treaty with Israel, as Egypt did under late President Anwar Sadat, and pledged that 'the Israeli presence must end, along with all similar presences, and today better than tomorrow.'