Background
Trad was born to an Eastern Orthodox family in Beirut and received a law degree from the University of Paris.
lawyer politician president prime minister
Trad was born to an Eastern Orthodox family in Beirut and received a law degree from the University of Paris.
He was an executive officer of the "Beirut Reform Movement," along with Salim Ali Salam. They all fled Lebanon including Trad. He was elected deputy from Beirut in 1925 serving in the Lebanese Parliament for much of the 1920s and 1930s, either elected or appointed by the French authorities.
The French rewarded his support by appointing him speaker of Parliament in 1937, a post he held until September 1939.
Trad could not stay neutral in the fierce political feud between the staunchly pro-French Émile Eddé and the independentist Bechara El Khoury. In his memoirs Bechara El Khoury accuses Trad of supporting Eddé.
In fact, Trad believed that both El Khoury and Eddé were incapable of winning the presidency and he promoted himself as a consensus candidate. Trad became president by default for an interim period.
The election of Bechara El Khoury in 1943 made it clear to him that his chances of winning the presidency were nil.
He died in Beirut in 1947.
He was a member of the parliamentary committee that worked on the French-Lebanese Treaty of 1936. He was briefly appointed by the French government as President, to oversee the election of a new president by members of an appointed parliament.