Lebanon’s parliament failed to elect president
Lebanon’s parliament failed on Monday to elect a president for the fourth time, with just a week left until outgoing President Michel Aoun’s term ends and warnings of a constitutional crisis growing louder.
With parliament more fractured than ever after May’s elections, political blocs have been unable to reach consensus on a candidate to succeed Aoun.
The presidency has fallen vacant several times since the 1975-1990 civil war but a vacuum now would be especially worrisome. The government is already operating in a caretaker capacity and the country is sinking deeper into a three-year-old financial meltdown.
Economic and political turmoil has sunk the currency by more than 90%, spread poverty, paralysed the financial system and frozen depositors out of their savings in the most destabilising crisis since the country’s civil war.
Votes in parliament on Monday were split mostly between independent MP Michel Mouawad, scholar Issam Khalife, who was newly nominated, blank ballots and some votes for political slogans.
Moawad, who won 39 votes on Monday, was still was far short the 86 ballots needed two-thirds of seats to win.
University professor and activist Issam Khalife took 10 votes, cast by independent lawmakers who emerged from a mass 2019 anti-government protest movement, as well as others.
But the required quorum was lost before a second round could be held, after some lawmakers walked out a recurring scenario in past votes.
Moawad’s supporters accused Hezbollah and its allies of obstructing a second round of voting to negotiate with other blocs, effectively preventing the election.
Lebanon’s parliament failed to elect president
“No bloc in parliament can impose a president, not Hezbollah nor anyone else,” said Elias Hankash, a lawmaker from the Kataeb Party that supports Moawad.
Aoun was elected in 2016 after a more than two-year vacancy at the presidential palace, as lawmakers made 45 failed attempts to name a candidate.
Since late 2019, Lebanon has been crippled by an economic crisis, dubbed by the World Bank as one of the worst in recent history.
